Sound of silence
by Ghost White
Summary: When Loki is dropped, broken and mute, into Tony Stark's proverbial lap he seizes the opportunity to act as Yinsen and heal the god's mental and physical wounds. Will it matter at all though when the 'cat' that has the gods tongue keeps him from letting his guard down?
1. Chapter 1

Big FAT thank you shout out to the worlds best Beta ever glamourraisedfromperdition. Really, she deserves much worship. Without her most of this would just be drool.

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September and summer leave New York a sticky, sweltering cesspool of humidity and heat as thunderheads roll around the skyscrapers threatening to make it even more muggy, like everyone isn't already dripping with sweat and generally feeling disgusting. There's no relief from it as night lays her veil of darkness over the land. Fucking summer.

Tony spends time contemplating the clouds from inside his tower, a silver and glass and just a hint of electric blue because it makes his eyes shine monolith that rises up out of the belly of Manhattan. The climate control is run by Jarvis and keeps the building at a perfect 75 but it does no good when Tony leaves the glass doors out to the deck open. Picking his way carefully on wobbly coltish legs across the overhanging stretch that makes up his private deck and landing pad. Tilting his head up as the first hot drops of water patter on his forehead and nearly sizzle on the concrete under his feet.

He shouldn't be drinking. He'd promised every nagging mother fucker that he wouldn't drink. Even Pepper herself made him say he wouldn't, when it's her fault he's clutching the twelve year old bottle of Macallan in one hand and a tumbler in his other. Her fault because she left him hanging high and dry, her fault because she's still his CEO and still runs his company and still smiles and is friendly like nothing happened between them.

The glass decanter scrapes against the concrete as he sets it at his feet, vertigo grabbing him by the head as thunder rumbles with the city spread out below him.

His beautiful city. His; because he saved it, Tony Stark's fucking city, they should change the name. NY is living up to her reputation as indestructible. Terrorists couldn't knock her down, and prissy gods can't ether.

Not that anyone in the general public knows it was a scorned deity. Shield had taken care of everything in that creepy way that makes him wonder who JFK really was assassinated by and if MIB is real. No. Scratch that. Shield is the MIB, is the cigarette smoking man in his life, the shadowed figure that alters problems and makes bad guys disappear in the dark of night. And boy they pulled the wool over humanities eyes perfectly this time.

Psychopharmacology.

It's a big word, a mouthful even for the specialists, even Tony had to have Jarvis look it up and he thinks that's why Shield chose it. Because it sounded just as important as it is. The testing and study of drugs on the human mind. All an 'accident'; a truck tipping over and spilling hallucinogens all over lower Manhattan. The wide spread terror had spawned the destruction and violence like a cancer taking over clean cells.

It's a really good alibi for an alien invasion.

He almost wishes it was the truth; it's horrifying with just the right amount of forgiveness; everything the truth isn't.

Standing on his toes, he leans over the rail of the deck and lets the wind grab his hair, whipping it around as thunder rolls and lightning flashes making the city stand out in a momentary flash of black and white before dissolving back into the darker cool colors of dusk.

It's hard not to let the lightning take him back to the night when he'd first meet Thor. The adrenalin rush that burnt the memories into his mind in techno color quality.

God only knows Tony can't possibly think of Thor without thinking of Thor's adopted little brother. The way Loki had looked to him in Stuttgart, his eyes blazing with a familiar madness, as Tony automatically claiming him as his.

'_Don't touch __**my**__ stuff'._

Maybe it wasn't his idiotic, read heroic, attempt to ram a nuclear warhead into an interdimensional portal that had been the driving wedge between him and Pepper.

Maybe it had started way back when he'd first set eyes on Loki in his living room as he watched the surveillance video of him coming out of the portal like he'd just clawed his way out of a pit in hell. The look was the same Tony had when he'd stumbled out of the cave in Afghanistan.

Because Tony understood that look and Pepper didn't.

Tilting the tumbler to his lips he blinks as nothing comes out, empty. At least that's an easy fix. The decanter makes another soft scraping sound as he picks it up and fills his drink. The expensive liquid burns as it goes down and numbs his stomach.

How many times has Loki's haunted eyes played a roll in Tony's actions over the last month? The number is staggeringly high.

Every time he closes his eyes he can't seem to stop seeing the empty look Loki had on his face as he and Thor went back to Asgard. The blank acceptance of his fate. It's wasn't a white flag of surrender, it was a suicide note. Heart breaking and sad.

Closing his eyes, he lets the soft splatter of rain slick his hair back and soak his clothes as the downpour starts, offering still no relief in the blazing heat but it seems to calm the storm of thoughts in Tony's mind better than the alcohol. Opening his mouth he tastes the rain, bitter and acidic, and he thinks it tastes like his city.

In that damn cave he had Yinsen. Someone to care for him, to guide him along his way. Loki had… a not quite brother whom he wanted nothing to do with. Understandably so in Tony's opinion. Thor was salt in a far too fresh wound to Loki, a golden reminder of a family he thought he had and didn't. At least Tony knew his family sucked and when it was gone it was good riddance. Not Loki though. From what few stories Thor had told, there had been love in Loki's life. Was. Not any more.

Hanging his head like the thoughts in it are a physical weight and it's too much for him to keep up Tony observes the city below him. Recovering and thriving through all differences. How unlike a human the city is, because if pushed too hard, too far, people break. It makes him sick to his stomach but that could just be the alcohol rotting a hole into his belly after all these years.

Turning and nearly loosing his balance at the sudden movement he strides back into the house, sneakers leaving wet footprints on the marble, not that he cares. Stumbling over to the white leather couch he sinks boneless against the uncomfortable furniture. Tony stabs his fingers into his temple and scratches at his hair line and tries really hard not to fall off the couch as he lies down.

"Turn the lights off, babe." He mutters, voice thick and lisped but Jarvis, always there, only true friend in Tony's life, always knows what he's trying to say and plunges the penthouse into darkness.

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If dreams were like grains of sand in the sea, Tony keeps coming across the same damn one. A prickly little fucker that abrades his skin and mind and agitates his soul.

A strike of lightning on his balcony, a god of chaos appearing ethereal within the molten flame of white.

He keeps waiting for a day when he'll crack his eyes open and watch the deity stride into the room, whether to kill him or to… Tony's not sure. The dream never supplies anything beyond the bright flash of lightning, the green flash of eyes, and the ozone smell. All small details and no answers.

Tonight's no different, lightning speeding through pregnant clouds, spider webs of hot white light making them glow from the inside. Tony blinks slowly, his eyes dry and feeling so very awake and not very asleep as he watches the storm gather and the lightning concentrate in one central point.

He's dreamt it so many times he knows what's coming next, the window rattling crack that sets every hair on end. His eyes watering with the vivid flash of light, blinking back the blindness he sits up slowly, head swimming with the onset of a hangover. It's all just as vivid every time. Just as real.

Then he blinks again.

Thor?

Swinging his legs off the couch Tony scrubs his thumb knuckles into his eyes and tries to see straight. The dream's never gone this way before, it's an incomprehensible feeling. Somewhat like watching a favorite movie to see the ending's changed suddenly. Like having the ground ripped out from under your feet.

The thunder god looks soaked to the bone outside as steam rises from his armor, his cloak in his arms and snow clinging to the edges of his boots, which the heat is greedily melting away. This is most definitely not part of the dream.

"Sir, Master Thor Odinson is on the deck." Jarvis voices from all around him, and Tony's mind does a quick count of the number of times he's had this dream over the last month and never once has Jarvis interjected, never once has Thor appeared on the other end of that lighting bolt.

"Am I awake?" He blinks, rubbing his eyes again and stumbling to his feet. Thor on the other side of the glass watches him with a weary look in his eyes like one would a tiger at a zoo that really doesn't use fences. Shifting from one foot to the other slowly as he looks down at the cape in his hands.

"It would appear so sir." The AI says with an assumed voice of exasperation.

"Yeah. Lights on then." He regrets that, the blinding glare of the lights against the glass making him blink and swallow back a groan, his hangover threatening to rise to the forefront of his cranium, adrenalin the only thing beating it back.

Right. He's not asleep then. Edging around the recessed bit of flooring and fluffy white carpet, he approaches the glass doors and pushes it open. The muggy air and ozone smell pushing against his face and waking him up a little more.

Thor doesn't smile but does move a step closer, his azure eyes liquid with what can't be unshed tears because gods just don't cry, do they?

"Thor?"

"Man of Iron. May I come in; I am in urgent need of the doctor Banner." The god says slowly, tilting his head down a little to the cape in his arms and Tony has to blink a few times when he realizes it's not just limp fabric but shaped like it's bound around a mass. Rain and something that looks suspiciously like blood drips down from the fabric and patters onto the rain soaked concrete.

Maybe he hit a dog. And then it hits him that his mind has supplied him with the most unlikely of possibilities considering the Asgardian doesn't drive.

"Yeah." He draws the word out, scratching his bearded chin. "Bruce isn't here. What's up?" He asks, pushing the doorway open the rest of the way and backing away a little so the towering god can enter. If nothing but to get him in out of the muggy rain.

His mind is sluggish and too slow to keep up with what is going on, leaving him standing and watching as Thor trails blood and rain and snow across the floor and deposits the bundle of red onto Tony's couch. The thunder god's hands are gentle like he's handling a bundle of glass.

"I do not know who else to go to. I need a healer's aid; I have no knowledge or time." Thor says, his voice strained and soft unlike anything Tony's ever heard from before.

What the fuck is going on?

"Did'ya hit a dog?" He asks, wrinkling his nose as blood soaks into the leather couch and starts to permeate the air with a bitter coppery scent. Thor blinking dumbly and wiping his hand across his face to remove the rain water and maybe tears.

"A bea-no." the thunder god grunts and frowns, his blue eyes flashing with annoyance, Tony's sure that frown is going to give him a fair share of nightmares. "My brother…"

"Loki?" Tony asks, because he's not really sure if there's other little or big Thors running around. Mythology says so but from everything else Tony's seen, that's all bullshit.

Thor nods as he looks to the swatch of red on his white couch, bleeding and soaked. Tony's heart making a slow slide down, bottoming out somewhere near the basement of Stark Towers arc reactor. The thunder god doesn't stop him as he walks slowly closer and doesn't comment as his hand shakes before grabbing a fist full of wet red fabric and pulling it away.

It's nothing like ripping a band-aid away; painful for only a second, and more like stabbing yourself in the gut with a sword; a flash of pain that only builds the longer it festers. His throat working as he tries hard not to throw up, nausea gripping him by the head and shaking till the room is nearly spinning.

Oh god. Is he dead?

He must have said that aloud because Thor leans close and presses his thick fingers to the blood soaked column of Loki's throat before nodding slowly. "He lives still." The god breaths clearly in relief to learn his brother is still with the land of living.

Even as he's assured, Tony's not sure its true. No one can look that bad and still be kicking. The pale skin that Tony remembers is snow white under the streaks of red blood. Black hair matted and sticking to his forehead with what's rain, or fever sweats if the pink tinge to his sharp cheeks is anything to go by.

Tony's scared to know what other damage lays behind the red cape and torn leather of his clothes; his stomach already twisting and threatening to reject the alcohol he'd consumed earlier.

His fingers smooth back the matted locks before he even knows what he's doing, the skin under his fingers as cold as ice. Smoothing the back of his fingers slowly over the god's brow, watching his hand with a disconnected feeling before Thor clears his throat and jerks Tony to reality once more. Pulling his hand away quickly he stumbles back from the scene, his mind coming on like a computer that's taken it's time to reboot.

"Why is he here? What happened?" He asks shooting for a hard tone but it just comes out breathy, eyes on Thor for a quiet moment as the thunder god simply stares at his unmoving brother seeming to contemplate his words.

"My father had chosen Loki's punishment within days of arriving back home. He was to be stripped of his powers and banished from Asgard not unlike how I was."

Tony nods a little and tilts his head down to Loki, taking in the tremors that are shaking the lean frame. "Are you telling me New Mexico did that to him?"

"Father did not send Loki to Midgard." Thor's hands clench, his blue eyes as stormy as the angry sky's outside. "Father sent him to Jotunheim."

He's not sure what that place is but going by the tone of Thor's voice it's the Asgardian equivalent of hell.

Tony is more than willing to admit that his father had earned earth's title for most shitty father ever, but Odin takes the crown on a galactic level. Swearing heavily he turns away, rubbing his hand through his hair and trying to ignore the bile stinging at the back of his throat. "You think we can help? Shield is going to eat him alive for the damage he's done. Earth is a great place but not everyone is so forgiving."

"I think you can son of Stark." Thor says and when Tony glances back at him the god looks so sure of himself and his judgment call of Tony's inner character.

"Why do you say that? I'm not a shining image of morals." He sighs, eyes moving past Thor to Loki, the pale hand that's escaped the red cape hangs limp from the couch, cut and scraped but still elegant even in his death. It's cold to the touch as he places it over the unmoving deity's belly in a restful pose.

"When everyone was coming at my brother with anger and vengeance, you spoke to him. You approached him as a person." Thor says solemnly.

Tony flinches at that and settles on the idea that Thor really will make a great king some day, he's not sure what kind of man the god once was, but here and now he's wise far beyond what Tony had first thought him capable of.

"I did." Tony breaths out a breathy 'fuck', nodding his head slowly in recognition, his body kicking into motion as he walks away, down a short hall to the bathroom talking loud enough that Thor can still hear him as he starts to grab towels and what medical supplies he has. "Bruce is in Tonga right now, that's about a fourteen hour flight. Jarvis, call up his satellite cell in a moment. You and I are going to keep him as stable as we can till the real help can get here."

"Not I son of Stark. Just you." Thor says from were he's kneeling by his brothers side, those sad eyes memorizing every inch of the younger gods face like this will be the last time he will see it.

"Excuse me? What?" Tony blurts, his voice squeaking as drops the bundle of towels, bandages and few bottles of Neosporin on the glass table. Rounding on the thunder god with wide eyes. "You can't just leave!" His heart kicks in a panic and he's trying really hard not to throw a fit like a child.

"I must return to Asgard to talk to my father. This punishment has gone too far." Thor says, his voice leaving no room for argument as he stands, clasping a bear paw of a hand on Tony's shoulder. "Keep watch over my brother. Keep him safe, I beg of you. He has been through too much already."

Thor glances one last time to his brother before turning and leaving him alone on Tony's now ruined couch, striding out back to the overhanging patio were Tony follows him out.

"You'll be back right?"

"I will return as soon as I can." Thor nods, his eyes tracking the storm over head like the answers to the universe are written in the zigzags of lightning, maybe to him they are. When his azure eyes settle on Tony once more they're so brimmed with emotion that it nearly chokes Tony. "Care for my brother, please."

Tony nods his head softly. The responsibility of the satiation weighing heavy on his shoulders but there's no one else to do it. Not like he can. He'll get Bruce's help. He'll hide Loki from Shields unforgiving wrath and maybe, just maybe he can be a Yinsen to Loki.

"I will." He says softly, stepping back till the doorway is between he and Thor, the god looking up to the sky a moment before another flash of lighting pulls the god back to his home. Riding the electric current to god only knows where.

Blinking to clear his eyes of the white spots that dance in front of the world he slowly turns and gazes across the room to the swatch of red and blood on the couch. In hindsight Tony really should have been careful what he dreamt about…

* * *

First thing, he's sure is to examine the subject, like he's tinkering on his projects. Inspect the situation; see what needs to be done. It's no different than fixing an engine, he just needs to step away from the emotional side of it and look at it from nothing but a clinical way.

Stroking his hand over his bearded chin he contemplates the mess on his couch. Most of the chaos god is still covered in Thor's cape, a soaked red tragedy in rain and blood with just a hint of snow melting here and there. He needs to get that off and probably any clothes on Loki to see his wounds before he can call up Bruce because that's going to be the first thing the good man is going to ask. That is, after he asks what the hell is going on.

Tony has no clue how he's going to answer that question. He's not even sure what the hell he's doing… aside from loosing his mind.

Taking a deep breath he pulls the soaked red fabric away from the young god, trying hard to keep his professional air and failing as washed green eyes blink open, shocked awake from the pain.

"Oh fuck!" Tony blurts over the non sound of Loki's scream, the god struggling in a panic to flee. Mouth and eyes wide in a dread. The creepy as hell silence ending as Loki falls to the marble floor with a painful sounding crash of limbs. "Shit shit. It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you! It's okay! Well, it's not okay, but I'm not going to hurt you?! Thor brought you here."

Loki stares at him with wide eyes and looks for all the world like a stray cat after being run over, blood dribbling from his panting open mouth, eyes washed out to the sickening color of cheep emeralds. The message of terror and pain written clearly in his body language, scratched long fingers trying to dig into the marble floor below him.

Kneeling slowly Tony holds up his hands and wonders if not for the morphine in his system when he woke up, if he'd have greeted Yinsen the same way. His heart kicking against the socket wall of the arc as he tries to look as relaxed and unthreatening as he can.

"'s okay. You're okay here." He whispers, keeping one hand up as he reaches out slowly with his other. Murmuring soft nonsense the whole time as his fingers brush gently over Loki's cold forehead. The god's body jerking like he's been electrocuted at the contact but as Tony talks slowly he relaxes, resting his forehead into Tony's palm and letting out a wet wheezed breath.

The blatant need of contact sending chills down Tony's spine. Where the hell has this guy been for the last month?

What little energy Loki had must be depleted after only a few seconds of panicked motion, shaking arms giving out and lowering himself till his blood streaked cheek is resting against the floor, eyes still on Tony. Weary, not quite as weary as before though.

"Fuck." Tony sighs, keeping his tone soft and gentle as he reaches to the table and grabs a towel ruining the white terrycloth with his bloody fingers and not giving a shit. Loki flinches weakly as he reaches out slowly and Tony goes back to murmuring softly to him. Calming him enough to clean the blood from his face with slow gentle swipes of the towel.

Under all that blood is ivory white skin and sunken eyes but not much more than a scratch or small bruise for a wound. Tony offering a weak smile at the sight trying to calm his own shaking hand and rattled nerves. "Hey, good lookin'."

Loki's look is genuinely quizzical for a second before his eyes close and his head turns away, closing Tony off from any other communication. Tony's okay with that. He's carried enough one sided conversations in his life, this is no different.

Grabbing a pillow from the couch he looks to Loki. "I need to get you undressed. I'm not going to hurt you though. I promise." He says, clutching the pillow to his chest a moment before reaching out and lifting Loki's head enough to get it under. Remembering how when he was in the caves, simple comforts meant the world.

He sweeps his eyes down the inert god's body, swallowing thickly as he can see areas where the leather and green fabric has been torn enough to see straight to the wounds. Loki's garments are different from the last time Tony saw him but just as complex. More buckles and straps then an S&M club.

This could take an hour. Fuck.

"I need scissors." He mutters, getting to his feet and turning away to the kitchen. Making it as far as the sink before his stomach coils, takes on a life of it's own and ends up emptying.

He's never been good at handling things like this. He never could keep a pet fish alive as a kid, he can't keep a steady relationship, and how is he supposed to keep Loki alive?! Rinsing his mouth out after spitting a few times into the sink he presses the heels of his hands against his eyes, blocking the world out.

"think-think-think-think." he chants to himself, the rasp of his own voice like sand paper to his ears. "Jarvis, call up Bruce for me now, babe. I… yeah. Call up Bruce." He says, grabbing the heavy duty scissors from a knife block on the counter.

The sound of the phone ringing echoes around the penthouse's great open spaces as he walks back to the god in front of the couch. Loki's head turning slowly and those washed unfocused eyes take a moment to lock in on him. Coughing a mist of blood weakly as he struggles, eyeing the scissors.

The fear Tony sees in that look twists the engineers already knotted gut into a ball of steel.

"No no, it's okay. Not going to hurt you." Tony says, kneeling down at his side once more and setting a gentle hand on the deity's chest. Doing the most insane thing he could imagine, uncurling the clawed fingers and setting the scissors into Loki's hand. Letting the god take the situation into his hands and praying his show of trust is accepted.

Confusion battles with pain in the green eyes for a moment, fingers weakly curling around the cool metal of the scissors before finally relaxing. Slipping the scissors back from limp fingers as he watches Loki close his eyes and seem to at least surrender to his fate, Tony hopes it's trust though.

He's glad he's got the scissors from the god's hand because Bruce's gruff sounding 'hello' sends him into another panic.

"Shit!"

"Tony?"

"Give me a moment." He snaps to Bruce, before clasping Loki's hands in a loose hold and trying to stop the god from struggling hard enough to wound himself even more than he already is. "Its okay." He says softly like a mantra to the god.

Bruce's psychic powers must be working, or he's far more apt at deduction than Tony ever has been because his next words are in the same soft tone that Tony's speaking to Loki in. "What is going on Stark?"

"I need your help. First of all I need you to call up the number I gave you for Happy and schedule the first flight out here you can."

"Why?"

Tony swallows, and looks down at the shaking god who seems to have crammed himself between the couch and Tony's lap. Trying and unable to find the wrathful god in the long limbs and black hair. It's all the same yet so different this time around. Maybe that's all the Why Tony needs, but Bruce will want more.

He can't stop himself from reaching down and running a gentle hand up and down the lean side, trying to comfort the best he can.

"I can't tell you yet. Schedule the flight with Happy, call me in an hour when you're on the plane." He says, moving slow as he pushes the leather of Loki's ruined jacket off his shoulders. Thin weak fingers reaching up to grab his wrist and stop him with the most pathetic wet clicking sound from the god's throat.

"Tony, this is crazy sounding. Crazier than your normal crazy."

"Just call me, Bruce." He demands letting Loki stop his prodding for a moment, satisfying himself by simply holding his cold shaking hand.

"Okay, an hour then but you owe me a lot of explanations." Bruce warns, his tone low and a little dangerous as the line cuts out with a beep and the rough sounds of Loki's breathing is once more the only noise in the penthouse.

Tony would love to just sit and let his mind devour itself in the quiet, drink and swear and pace too, but there's things to be done still and he now has a deadline.

"I've got to get all this off of you. I am not going to hurt you." He says in what he hopes is his most assuring tone, Loki doesn't nod or voice his opinion but his eyes close and he slowly lets go of Tony's hand. Ignoring the mocking voice at his sentiment as he moves Loki's hand so it can loosely hold the fabric of his jeans before starting to scissor through the wet leather and fabric.

Even with how carefully he's being there's times when Loki's breath hitches and his knuckles go white, gripping Tony's jeans tight. Never once does he cry out and Tony's got to hand it to him for keeping that little shred of pride in what must be an incredibly degrading moment.

The scissors make everything a little easier though, damn Asgardians and their love for complicated clothing. He manages to get everything off and most of the blood cleaned away from all that lovely pale skin, wrapping a towel around the shivering god's waist as he curls onto his side once more.

Tony eyes the wounds wearily, concerned over the still seeping ones on his belly and chest, rubbing his hand over his own throat as he glances to the one there. Pain dulled eyes blink open slowly as he reaches down and strokes black hair back from his face.

"Rest. Bruce will be calling soon and then I'll figure out how to help you more." He explains softly, getting lost in his thoughts as he detangles the inky hair with his fingers the best he can.

He's only got twenty minutes or so before Bruce calls back up demanding answers that Tony doesn't have any responses for. Rubbing his hands through his hair, he's disgusted to see them dirty with Loki's blood.

Sometimes the honest truth is the only way to go, he'll just tell Bruce that Thor brought Loki to him looking like road kill and Tony willingly accepted the job because… because he's just that outstanding of a person. No need to mention haunting dreams and watered down feelings of PTSD.

Sighing heavily he snatches another large towel from his stack and uses it to cover Loki's shoulders. The chaos god seems to have settled into a fitful sleep once more, his hand still gripped weakly to Tony's jeans effectively stopping him from getting up and pacing as much as he wants to.

Trapped here with nothing but his thoughts he breaths out a sigh. If Tony had told Thor no; Loki would be where? Would he have taken his brother to Shield or did he have enough sense to him to know that the organization would have just finished off the job? He'd rather not mull over what Fury and his team of witch doctors would be doing to the god.

Shifting a little to make himself more comfortable on the floor he eyes the blanket over on the other end of the couch, just past arms reach and kicks himself for not being gangly. Stretching slowly he tries hard not to disturb the resting god and after straining hard enough his brow is slick with sweat he grasps the cobalt knit afghan.

"Shit, I need stretchy arms. Jarvis, and that to my queue." He huffs under his breath, not expecting the AI to answer. Shaking out the blanket that was probably expensive and is about to be ruined before draping it gently over Loki's body, smiling down at him as green eyes tiredly blink open.

"Sir, there is an incoming call from Mr. Banner."

"He's early." Tony sighs, watching what little light in Loki's eyes fade a little as fear takes over curling in on himself under the blanket. "Put him though damn-it."

"Tony."

"Bruce. Buddy. How was Tonga?" He asks as cheerful as he can setting a hand on the side of Loki's shoulder, circling his thumb over the lean muscle under the blanket.

"Humid. What the hell is going on Tony?"

"If you wanted humid you could have just stayed here. Weather's been otherworldly." He chuckles at his joke, looking down at Loki but the god is slumbering again, he'd much prefer to think that than passed out. It's a sobering sight.

Breathing out a heavy sigh he lifts his head to look up at the ceiling. "Shit, sorry. That was a stupid joke."

"What's wrong? You just apologized." Bruce asks his vice thick with worry.

"Loki is what's wrong, he's so fucked up." He groans, pinching his nose with his free hand. "I need you here man, I can't. I could take him down to the med floor but I don't even know how to use half that shit." He croaks, his voice giving out as frustration squeezes his throat. A flood gate opening that he's afraid he'll never get closed again. "I'd just end up stabbing myself and Dummy's not trained to handle things like this. I'm not trained to handle things like this. I don't even know where to start, there's so much bl-"

"Breath Tony, you sound like your having a panic attack." Bruce says calmly, the voice of reason over the airwaves. He's probably right too. Tony's heart feels like it's leaping out his throat and his lungs aren't getting enough air. Pressing his head back against the couch's armrest he squeezes his eyes shut and takes a few measured breaths.

"Better?" the doctor says after a moment.

"Still fucked, yeah. But I'm better." He says, rubbing his temple to relieve some of the pressure there. His hangover having mixed with his migraine into a violent attack of pain behind his eyes.

"Now what about Loki?"

Glancing down to the unmoving god he breaths out a heart felt sigh and collects his senses. "Where are you?"

"I'm on your company jet." Bruce says with a muffled sound over the line. "It's a secure line if that's what you're asking, talk."

"Thor dropped by about an hour ago. Passed off his little brother for me to care for."

"In chains, right. Are you okay?"

"No chains. Shit. No chains. He's beat up bad, Bruce." He groans, gripping a little tighter to Loki's shoulder as the god tenses. Not as asleep as he looks to be than. "Thor says his dad took all of his powers from him or some shit like that, sent him to Hohothum. I think they eat their guests alive there."

There's a silence through the line and Tony can almost see the man pushing his glasses up his nose. In the quiet, Tony smoothes the blanket over Loki's hip, the god actually tries shifting a little to worm closer. Giving a muted hiss of pain with the failed move so Tony crosses the distance for him till the trickster gods bony spine is pressed to his hip.

"So you've got a chaos god hanging out at your pad and invited me to what, rework your floor again?" Bruce says after a moment, his voice thick with sarcasm and confusion. Tony knows he'd be feeling the same way if situations were different so he doesn't judge too hard.

"No. I'm saying I've got a chaos god bleeding to death on my floor and I'm asking for help. Friend to friend."

Bruce snorts, "Well that changes everything. Fine, give me what you know." There's a bit of humor in his voice and it makes Tony blink a little, drawing a soft smile onto his face.

"Not going to argue?" the relief in his heart comes though his voice.

"It's you. You've never done anything normal Tony. You can play nurse; just tell me what you can see."

Sitting back up strait he smoothes his hand down Loki's side in an attempt to get him to roll over. "I can wear one of those little hats and mini skirts. Very kinky." He says the second part with a grin aimed down at Loki but the humor is lost to the god as he simply bares his teeth in pain and turns onto his back.

Taking a deep breath he nods his head to himself and scratches his hairline. "What do you want to know first?"

"Be my eyes for me Tony, what do you see?"

Channeling every crime scene and ER show he's ever been forced to sit through he gently eases the blanket back from Loki's body, tipping his head in a silent apology as the god shivers. "He's pale, ah. Cold. I had a blanket around him but he's shivering now."

"Sounds like shock, you said he's bleeding? From where, describe the wounds. Detail Tony."

"Yeah. Sorry. I forgot to study the Grays Anatomy before calling you." He grumbles, lips twisting into a frown as Loki flinches from his touch as he tries to feel the wound on his throat. "Top to bottom he's got about a two inch gash just above his collar bones on his throat that looks deep. Then down on his left side, ah… couple ribs up looks like a stab wound. That…" He swallows and glances away, fighting the bile burning the back of his throat, the pale view of bone too much for him. Scrubbing his hands over his face.

"You're doing good Tony. Just give me a general idea; how many wounds and how much blood do you think he's lost?"

"There are about three others around his abdomen and belly, one longer gash across his back. All of those have yet to stop bleeding. I- I don't know how much blood he's got left in him." Tony admits in a small voice, letting Loki curl back onto his side and covering him with the blanket again.

He nearly jumps out of his skin as the gods hand snakes out and grips onto his once more. He couldn't be saying that he wants Tony to stay close any louder if he was yelling it.

"Okay, I want you to keep him warm."

"And… bind the wounds or something like that?" He asks, not looking foreword to the thought.

"No because when I come I'll have to take the bandages off, there's chances of them wicking more blood than he's actually bleeding, or of it sticking to the gauze meaning pain when it's removed." Bruce explains, a tapping over the line coming though soft and dull. A drum beat that's probably the doctor's fingers against the leather seat he's sitting in. Clearly deep in thought about what paths to take for his new patient. Or how to deal with Tony's psychosis.

"For now I think the best course of action would be to keep him warm and comfortable as you can. Try to get him to drink, Orange Juice and something strong like rum. Not water."

"You want me to get him drunk, doesn't that make people bleed more?" He blinks his eyes and glancing up to the ceiling, wishing he could see Bruce just so he can know if his leg is being pulled.

Banner has the gull to chuckle too. "Trust me; it will only be a few table spoons at the most. The alcohol will help keep him warm and the OJ will bring up his blood sugar levels and reduce the risk of shock."

"Huh." Tony blinks and his eyebrows bounce to his hairline, who knew that every time he was making sunrises he was saving his own life. Another grand reason to keep drinking. "Listen, ah, I'd appreciate it if this was kept between me and you for a while." He says, dropping his eyes back down to Loki. Rubbing his thumb over the bruised wrist gently.

"I kind of figured this was under Shield's radar."

"Are you questioning my logic?" Tony asks, a flare of protective instinct lighting off in his belly, that 'mine' rising to the front once more.

Bruce sighs over the line, heavy and deep. "I wouldn't have been in Tonga if I trusted the bastards."

And if that doesn't sum up the standing of the Avengers.

Tony, Bruce, apparently even Thor trust the marry band of spies about as far as they can throw the earth. Steve's torn between the deep rooted beliefs that a government stands for the good of its people and the brutal truth that's so many shades of gray it's a teen mommy novel. Clint had flown the coop to ends only Tony knows to find himself after Loki had rattled his mind. Leaving Nat the only member still disgustingly loyal to Fury.

"Go on Tony, You've got work to do and I've got to think over all of this. I'll see you in roughly ten hours."

"Right. See you then buddy." Tony huffs out a breath hard enough to ruffle Loki's hair and stir the god into opening his eyes, equal parts crystalline silver and spring green now that Tony's close enough to really see them.

The line beeps as it cuts off a disturbingly chipper tone that Tony's sure he didn't program. Watching shivers chase down the gods lean spine despite the summer heat just a plate of glass away.

"Just me and you for now. Nothing's going to hurt you here." He says again, feeling like he can't get that message out enough, giving the hand in his a gentle squeeze.

He's not sure how his life got so fucked up so quickly or why it gives him a warm comfort inside. Like a puzzle piece that's been missing was just found, a little worn and sticky from life under a table, but it fits. Locks right into place and makes him feel like the picture that is his life might become a little clearer.


	2. Chapter 2

Big FAT thank you shout out to the worlds best Beta ever glamourraisedfromperdition. Really, she deserves much worship. Without her most of this would just be drool.

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Follow my Tumblr to get updates and previews of fics as well as general frostiron goodness. Blank-ghost . Tumblr . com

* * *

The darkness that's swept across the room should bring a peace and safety with it, and to a degree it has. But it's also a harbinger of times to come Tony fears. These long hours slipped away in the quiet of the night.

It's too dark and with the heat of summer locked outside, too cold.

"Hunny, can you bring up my itinerary for tomorrow."

"Do you mean today sir?" Jarvis inquires. The combined efforts of a head ach and hangover are making the room swim a little as Tony looks away from Loki's sleeping form and up to the windows; the darkness outside cut by the occasional flash of lightning still lingering in the horizon. The city lining the clouds in a sick yellow illumination the same way it dulls the stars and dims the moon.

"What time is it?" He asks, rubbing his thumb and index finger into his dry eyes and trying to fight off his migraine. Still feeling sick to his stomach.

He's never handled stress well when sober; it only figures this time is no different.

It's impossible to tell the time by the sky and it doesn't feel like any time at all has passed since he'd hung up with Bruce. Having only left Loki's side long enough to fetch a few more blankets and the now dreaded OJ.

"It is just after two am sir, Thursday, September the-"

"Yeah. I got it." He cuts his AI's voice off with a low groan, slinking back till his head is leaned back against the ruined white couch, his neck already feeling stiff. Closing his eyes and trying to pull the plug on the thoughts spinning in his skull. "Just give me the itinerary."

"You have an appointment at eleven am with Ms. Potts."

"Cancel it." He grunts, laying his hand over his eyes. "Cancel everything. Forever."

"I doubt Ms. Potts will be pleased to hear that Sir." Jarvis says, ever the traitor at times like this.

A frown twisting at his lips he heaves a sigh out his nose and plucks the last folded blanket off the couch. "Then cancel everything for the next week." He demands, settling the warm gray fabric over his legs after kicking off his sneakers.

"There is a delivery of PU -two hundred forty plutonium to the R and D floors vault on next Tuesday sir, are you sure you want that canceled?"

Tony arches an eyebrow as he settles his head back against the couch, glancing down at the god by his side. A little like plutonium himself; volatile but if used right capable of doing incredible things. "No. Don't cancel that. It took me months to get it."

"Yes sir. I'll cancel everything else."

He'd ordered the Plutonium on a whim back before the Avengers and gods had rattled his life. It had taken months for the order to get certified and even longer for the government to sanction the deal. Rhodey had to pull some pretty big strings to get it done and even Shield had stepped in and waved their magic wand. All so he can have some fun.

It's pretty nice being the all powerful Tony Stark when it makes things go his way.

He's banking on that power working to his advantage to help the god slumbering cold at his side too. Keeping his hand on his shoulder just so he can feel the rise and fall of Loki's lean chest through the blankets. Doing his best to keep the deity going.

The orange juice had been a joke; Loki had choked it up and refused to drink. Falling into a panic attack when Tony tried to force the glass on him and didn't that just break his heart in ways he didn't know was possible.

"How long till Bruce get's here?" He asks, stroking his hand down Loki's side as a violent shiver shakes its way down his spine and the god curls in tighter with a cringe. Fuck it's a whole lot harder to watch the god suffer than he'd have ever thought.

"Still seven hours fifteen minutes sir, there is a possibility of a slight delay due to an oncoming low-pressure system from Canada."

There are still too many hours to go before Bruce shows up and can hopefully work his wonders on Loki.

He knows Banner isn't a physician but a brilliant atomic physicist and a philanthropist not unlike Tony who'd focused his efforts for the last few years into learning the finer details of being a field medic. Loki has no other choice though, it's not like he can drive him down to Lenox Hill; the nearest hospital that had survived the attack a month ago perfectly intact, thank god.

Wasted green eyes blink open slowly, awoken from his fevered terrors by the unfamiliar sound of Jarvis. Loki takes a moment to survey the shadowed penthouse with open apprehension. Every dark corner check for an attacking foe, his body twitching with each distance roll of thunder.

"It's just us still. You're safe here." He breathes out softly as Loki's eyes finally fall to him. Scooting down slowly between the couch and the floor and opening his arms in an invite. The look Loki shoots him is a pale comparison of a glare the god was once capable of but he still cant stop the breath chuckle at the wilted frown. "Come on, your freezing still and this will help."

Tony spends a moment listening to their mingled breathing, sure that the deity is going to drift off to sleep balled alone but safe in his cocoon of blankets till a roll of thunder echoes too close to home. The roll rattling the windows and Tony can feel it in his bones as much as through the penthouse. The sound is still ringing his ears as Loki moves closer, dragging blankets with him.

Tony sits still and watches as Loki uses his spider limbs to claw at the marble, moving like a wounded ominous creature from a far away land. Graceful and fey even now. Otherworldly. He can't help but hold his breath, not moving least the spell be broken and the quiet between them return to dour.

Loki's shaking from head to toe as he situates himself into Tony's lap, pillowing his head on his chest just past the glow of the arc. Giving out with a breathy wheeze.

"'s okay." Tony mutters, fixing the blankets back around them and stroking the god's raven hair. Counting the moments it takes for Loki's wet sounding breaths to deepen and his muscles to relax in sleep.

Tony can almost feel the slow build of trust between them being laid out one brick at a time.

Saving Loki's life is priority number one at the moment but the second that goal is met, his true objective is to help sort out that bag of cats and he can do nothing without trust at this moment.

Tony remembers far too vividly what it's like to have stress override every thought in his mind till he was operating on instinct, anger, and terror alone. It had taken a lot of help from Yinsen to sort his mind out again and to think clearly enough that he could see a path out of that cave.

He needs his head about him now more than ever because this isn't a cave he's navigating with Loki; it's something far more dark and deep. Something much like the darkness Tony caught a glimpse of on the other side of the portal. Eternal and terrifying.

* * *

It's the warm fingers pressing against his carotid artery just under his jaw that makes him realize he'd fallen asleep against his will. Tony had intended to stay awake and make sure Loki stayed stable and didn't die, not that he could have done much to prevent it, but best laid plans of drunks rarely get followed through.

Groaning lowly he bats the hand away. Cracking his eyes open only when a flash of an idea penetrates the hazy fog in his mind, Loki's moved, because the warm weight against his torso and trapping his legs is gone. Sunlight invading his eyes with blinding daggers of light joining the discomfort of the desert that's taken up residence in his mouth when he was sleeping. Yuck.

Bruce's face blocks out the glare and looks down at him, a cocktail of worry and stress messing up the pleasant smile that he's forcing his mouth into. "Can you hear me? Do you know what today is?"

Tony blinks at the odd questions and spends a moment trying to clear his head of sleep induced stupor and the disgusting taste in his mouth. "What? No, you're not here for me. I'm fine. Hung-over." He grunts tenuously, rubbing his eyes with his hands and sitting up slowly.

Or would be, if Bruce didn't push him back down again with a forceful hand against his chest. Tony's hearts jumping into a panicked run at the incriminating pose as Banner tips his head back by the chin and leaning close to look into his eyes. Checking one and than the other with sharp doctorial eyes. "They look clear Clint."

"Clint?" His heart's run stumbles and falters as he twists his chin from Bruce's hold and glances across the floor. The cold slip of the blade into his spine is metaphorical but could be no more painful if Bruce was holding the knife.

For how familiar Tony is to betrayal it gets him every time.

Not only is Barton in his penthouse but so is Rogers, both posed over and restraining the struggling god. Looking ridiculously strong compared to Loki's weak attempts to escape, both his captors looking over to Tony.

Tony's blood rushes to his ears and his drum beat heart drowns out everything Bruce says to him as Rogers nods, leaning more weight onto the deity and stilling his struggles. Loki's sneer of attack turning to a silent gasp of pain. The world focusing down to this room and nothing else as his fists bunches and connects with Banner's jaw.

The pain in his knuckles sends the too sharp world back into normal focus. "The fuck!" and "Stark!" are the first things he hears as again as he pushes himself to up and aims for Bruce again. Striking the doctor down to his side, uncaring of the repercussions; the Hulk and the probability of being turned into a nice Stark flavored smear. Anger the only thing on his mind as he sees red and lumbers after Bruce with all the grace of a dying buffalo.

"It's Tony alright." Banner hisses, holding up a hand to stop any further attack from Tony as he presses his free hand to his bloody mouth. "Shit. You've got one hell of a right hook."

"That was really stupid Tony." Rogers snaps in the same condescending tone he'd used back on the carrier. Tony glares over to them, stumbling to his feet, nearly tripping on the blankets still on the floor.

Pointing a finger at the duo pinning the god down Tony sneers. "Let him go and get the fuck out of my tower. All of you." His voice is rising to a near scream as he turns to face Bruce. "Out!"

Banner raises his hands, palms out in submission as he licks at his bloodstained lip. The fact that he's mirroring the same pose that Tony had used with Loki only a handful of hours before isn't lost to him.

It's clear who the sane people are in the room; he and Loki aren't on that list.

"I'm here to help, Tony."

"And a lot of help you're doing." He growls through clenched teeth, kicking away the blankets and walking to Loki. Physically shoving Clint away from the cowering deity, the archer making a fast scramble backward from him before Tony's fist can kiss his face too.

He glares at Rogers, a silent dare to do anything but Steve takes a hesitant step back and stuffs his hands into his slacks. His cornflower blue eyes weary as he watches the scene, his disapproval oh so much like a look Howard would have worn.

None of them trust him right now, and boy is it mutual. Bastards.

"We had to know for sure that you are you, Tony. You've got to understand that. If I'd called you out of nowhere and announced that I needed help patching together my biggest enemy, you'd wonder if I'd lost my mind too. It's even more convenient that this nut can control minds."

Tony shoots Banner a glare that he's hoping says 'shut up' and hides the hurt that's still wrapped around his heart like barbed wire. Fuck Bruce for his logic, Tony's sick and tired of that right now.

Sinking to his knees and letting Loki reach out to him with shaking hands. What wounds had managed to stop bleeding over night have started again, the crimson liquid making slow tracks down alabaster skin that's once more as cold as ice.

Tony knows he should be signing himself up for a head check as he lets Loki grab onto him and curl up nearly in his lap in front of everyone else but he doesn't care. His own hands shaking too much- panic attack probably, going by how hard it is to breath. The god of chaos meets his eyes for an instant, the green depths filled with pain and fear; it must be mirroring his own eyes because Loki looks away with a thick swallow to the other Avengers.

The safety of Tony's home has been broken and it's left both of them feeling raw and exposed.

"I'm sorry, Tony." Bruce says from over his shoulder and when Tony looks up to him he's holding out one of the blankets. Blood dribbling down from his nose from Tony's hit but his eyes seem clear and sad, no sign of Hulk.

Tony snatches the blanket and settles it over Loki's shaking naked body. "Don't give me that sorry bullshit. I don't want to hear it. Help him or get the fuck out." Smoothing a hand through Loki's hair, he glances to the other Avengers. A large part of him still itches for a fight for betraying his trust so much.

Banner nods and lets out a nasally sigh, glancing to Steve and Clint. "Can I get you two to carry him down to the Med rooms for me?"

Tony opens his mouth to argue and Loki's hands gather into his shirt, holding in an iron clad grip but the other two men are already moving. Shouldering Tony away as they close in on Loki, grabbing blanket and deity. For a moment Tony thinks everything is going to be okay as they take him away from his hold.

Kind of like every thing else for the last fifteen or so hours, that peaceful moment of everything working right only lasts a heartbeat before it all goes to hell.

Loki's spine arcs and twists, his fist inviting itself to Clint's face and when Steve tries to restrain him they all learn a new respect for the god of chaos' teeth. It would be funny as hell if not for how much it's like a wounded animal making it's last defense.

"Hey! Put him down! Leave him alone damn-it, he's scared!" Tony barks and jumps to his feet, shoving off Banner's hands. Barton follows orders more than willingly and drops Loki to the floor like a sack of potatoes, Steve pulling his now bleeding arm up to his chest.

"The hell, Tony! He's a monster, he kills people and now you're worried he's scared?" Steve pants, holding his arm tight with his other hand, his face a little white. Shocked that he's just been bit. Probably thinking he needs a rabies shot now, Tony's not to sure if it wouldn't be true considering he has no clue where the god's been for the last month.

"You need to back the fuck up." Tony threatens, pissed to hell over him calling Loki the monster when it's them that invaded his home. Pushing against Steve's chest, the good captain returning the gesture with a frown, twice as strong as Tony and sending him stumbling back.

"What, you want to start something here, son? I find it hard enough that you're wanting him better, defending him too now? Maybe he has messed with your head. Then again maybe he didn't need to, you two seemed pretty cozy when we first came in." Rogers says what must be on everyone else's mind because Clint looks away in shame.

Tony shifts his weight so he can throw a punch, ready to fight, wanting it. He can feel the need burning his blood and altering his way of thinking. An inferno of rage that ashes all other thoughts.

It's the helicarrier all over again. The violent mix of emotions all agitated to the point of poison by the simple presence of one distressed god.

"Oh." Tony breaths out as lightening strikes his mind in the form of understanding, stepping back from Steve with wide eyes and white knuckled fists, looking down at Loki who's curled himself into a ball behind him. "Oh… it is you..."

"Stark, you're not making any since." Bruce says, kneeling slowly and trying to set a hand on Loki's side. Tony shifts to tell him to back off but the god allows the soft touch, so Tony does too. Trying to force himself to relax.

Stroking his bearded chin he nods, mind turning over the new possibilities. So many things explained all at once. "Shit…yeah. I know I'm not. Clint, Rogers, get the fuck out of my tower. I'll help you, Banner." He says, kneeling down next to Loki again. Those amazing washed eyes watching him wearily.

"It's natural to you, isn't it? Thor says you have no powers… so it's biological. I wonder if it's a pheromone." He says softly to Loki, Bruce looking to him like he's mad as Steve shifts from foot to foot behind him. Acknowledgment flickers over Loki's face, a small tilt to his thin lips, gone before anyone else can notice it.

He ignores Rogers till Clint leads him away to the bar, giving them space to handle Loki and as the threat leaves so does the burning need to fight.

"Do you want to tell me what just happened?" Bruce asks softly, helping Tony gather Loki wrapped in a blanket into his arms bridal style. His back groaning in protest but he's sure now that there's no other way to do this besides knocking the god out to move him. Tony's not even going there.

It takes a moment to get Loki situated in his arms, the trembling god hiding his face against Tony's neck as his body is jostled around despite the engineer's best efforts to keep him comfortable. Breathing a soft 'I'm sorry' to him as he rises to his feet. Banner keeping a steadying arm on his back till he has his balance.

"Yeah. Can we not have this conversation? My hands are full - fuck - and I don't like you right now anyways." He grunts, being careful as he has to shift Loki in his arms, the god giving a pinched sound of pain.

Bruce walks ahead to call the elevator to the floor for him, his shoulders bunched in stress and his shirt rumpled. The fourteen hour flight combined with stress and Loki's special brand of anxiety inducing pheromones has Bruce using every stress relieving trick in his bag.

Any other day of the week Tony would have taken that as a warning sign that the man was nearing his green edge but today he just can't make himself care. Ignoring his silent presence on the trip down to the Medical floor.

The medical floor is broken up and stocked with everything from an x-ray and EKG, a fully equipped surgical theater the first door Bruce leads him through. It's all a bunch of shit Tony has no clue what to do with, and no want to ever be part of.

"You got that look you get like a light came on over your head, back there when you were arguing with Steve. Do you want to tell me what it was all about?" Bruce asks as he leads Tony to a steel table so he can lay Loki out. Distracting himself from the god awful antiseptic smell that's soaked into the very bones of the room Tony wags his head.

"Nope. My secret for now. You're not my friend. I don't tell non-friends secrets." He says, detangling Loki's long fingers from his shirt, the god trying to arch up off the cold table. "Shh. No no. Stay. It's safe here. Bruce isn't going to hurt you." He says, knowing his tone's gone from soft and soothing to threatening.

"Safe and sound." Bruce says tonelessly, pulling a hypodermic from a sterile pack and grabbing a vial from one of the many glass cases that line the walls. "I'm just going to help you fall asleep, Loki."

Tony's head snaps up. Suddenly not so interested in trying to pry Loki's hands off him. "What?"

Bruce breaths out an exasperated sigh. "He's not going to let me look at him. Those wounds need cleaning and stitches. Infection's already set in most of them. It's going to hurt and he needs the rest." Bruce talks as he fills the syringes barrel, tapping out any bubbles as he walks around to Loki's other side. The god's wide eyes bouncing from Tony to Banner and back. Mouth and throat working but no sound coming out other than wet clicks.

Tony stops trying to push Loki's hands away and gently holds the gods bruised wrists protectively, shaking his head no to Bruce.

Banner sighs, seeing that he's not getting the response from Tony he wants. "I don't think any of us want him biting me. Or doing something really stupid."

"Like hitting you in the face? You took that really well you know." Tony frowns but nods, his gut sore from all the knots it's tied itself in, the perpetual ach in his chest making his head spin. "Fuck. I hate you- Go on. Do it."

He doesn't watch as Bruce takes Loki's nearest arm from Tony's hold and slips the needle into the crook of his elbow, keeping his eyes on Loki. Tony can feel himself drowning in the silver and emerald debts; a slow pleasant death. Stroking the hand holding onto his shirt till the god of chaos finally falls limp, incredible eyes closing in sleep.

Motionless and as cold as a grave stone, Loki looks dead. His eyelashes casting dark shadows under across sharp cheeks and the marks of his punishment show vivid colored against his too pale skin. Tony can't find any life in him at all and the momentary panic that causes is both shocking in fierceness and authenticity.

"Check him."

"He's okay, Tony."

Tony looks across the table to Bruce, eyes harsh and dark with hate. "Check him."

Sighing the man follows the order, finding Loki's pulse at his wrist and nodding. "He's fine. Will you relax now?" He asks, pushing his glasses up his nose with a wince. That must hurt still.

Crossing his arms over his chest Tony backs up far enough to lean his hip against the table behind him. Nodding. "I'm relaxed. Now fix him."

"This could take a few hours, Tony. Go take a shower and eat some food. I'm not going to poke him in the eye."

Tony's eyebrows pull down into a glare and he shifts away from the table. "You've never had to take the Hippocratic Oath."

"You can trust me Tony."

"Because we saw how well that went last time? Yeah. I don't think so. Burn me once, my bad. Burn me twice… well. It doesn't happen twice."

"I was worried Tony! I didn't try to murder you or him; can you get your head out of your ass and see that?" Bruce says, setting his hands on the table next to Loki's side and leaning over him, the chandelier's lights reflecting off his glasses.

Looking away Tony swears hard, pushing away from the table and pacing away a few steps. Thinking as he walks. Trying to wrap his mind around this fucked up situation because damn it Bruce is right. They weren't declaring war on Tony, they were making sure their friend was okay and he probably owes Clint and Steve an apology too.

His shattered trust isn't so fast to accept the smooth words though, always trying to see the underhanded ways everyone does everything. Looking and searching for cracks that will show him the world really is out to get him. Paranoia? Probably, but anything short of that makes him feel far too vulnerable.

"Will you talk to me, Tony?" Bruce's voice is soft though the room, reflecting around all the metal and white till it sounds like there's a hundred of him all whispering too Tony. Demanding to be let in when Tony isn't ready to go there again, not yet. Maybe never again.

Tony shakes his head no. "I'll be back in an hour, have Jarvis page me if anything changes before then." He rasps, his throat tight as he pushes out the doors to the hallway. Breathing in thick gasps of air and bending his knees he hangs his head. Using the wall for support as he tries to swallow down the waves of panic and distrust.

* * *

Tony's shower is crowded under the hot spray, leaning his head against the chilled tile and watching the water spin brown with Loki's blood down the drain. His thoughts cramming out the soothing water's effects and making the steam suffocating.

He makes angry work at scrubbing his hair and body clean, using the burn in his belly from Bruce's betrayal as a fuel for his momentum. It's that or lay down to cry somewhere and Tony's never been one to drop to that level, although this time it feels close.

Some things never get easier the number of times it happens and he's quick to realize that there's only so much one person can take from life before they start to break down. Tony has had more than his fair share of life's shit he feels.

It's what he gets for trying to trust someone. Closing his eyes tight and pushing his head back against the tile he grits his teeth. He came so close to loosing everything for both himself and Loki. Bruce could have called up Shield and he'd be locked in a nice glass cell right now and Loki's insides would be in neatly labeled jars and the world wouldn't know what happened to the great Tony Stark because Shield always, always, cleaned its messes.

Bruce didn't go there though; instead he pulled friends in with him to twist the knife in Tony's back.

Shutting off the water he lets the drips run down his back and over his nose and into his eyes as he concentrates on breathing. He's got to get his shit together now. Plans have changed but that doesn't mean his goals have.

Help Loki.

Number one.

Help… himself?

He guesses that's number two.

Breathing out a sigh he steps out of the shower stall and snags a towel off the rack. Bypassing his hair and simply toweling his body dry before dressing back into clean slacks. Body moving through the motions of a living human but his mind is far from earth. Locked in an orbit between the planets 'Loki' and 'fuck-the-world' in the solar system of 'my-life-is-over'.

The heavy thump on his door snaps his head up and brings a frown front and center. "Jarvis, who is that?"

"It's me, Tony. I can hear you, you know; It's just a door." Clint's voice sounds soft and frustrated through the wood and he can just picture the expression he's wearing. Brows down and sunglasses pushed into his short mousey brown hair.

A trespasser wrapped in a familiar package.

Tony liked Clint. Tony liked just about every one of the Avengers, with the exception of Natasha's freak spy abilities and Steve's morals. Liked, he's not too sure now what his opinion is.

Tugging the flannel shirt on over his wet head he strides to the door and pulls it open. Clint holds out a coffee mug and offers up a weak smile, sunglasses in place just where Tony knew they'd be.

"I don't like being handed things." Tony says in a bored tone, turning his back on him and striding into his room. Searching through his dresser for a hopeful matching pair of socks. He's not sure if it's the meat locker in his chest or if summer has fled in fear of the Norse but it feels ten degrees colder today than yesterday.

Clint sets the mug on a small bedside table before taking up residence on the foot of Tony's bed, glancing down the silk sheets that probably cost more than Shield pays the archer in a week. He's doing that thing when he wants to talk but no words come out, it's a look that's common on him. He had it a lot before he decided to go soul searching.

"Spit it out. No. Wait. Let me guess." He says, picking up the coffee and taking a drink. It's warm and settles his still knotted stomach a little. Licking his lips before heaving a sigh, "Tony, you're a failure to the human species." Glancing down to Clint, he's a little proud to see the smile on the archer's face.

"I was just going to say you're a crazy asshole, but that whole failure thing sounds pretty good." Clint chuckles weakly, working his thumb over the knuckles of his other hand, looking down at them instead of at Tony.

"Yeah. I know. It was my father's favorite too." Tony sighs, sitting down next to him and clutching the mug in his hands, giving up on socks and just about everything else in life at the moment he curls his toes against the cold marble floor and regrets his distaste for carpet.

There's a heavy moment of silence that seems to swallow up all the sounds of the penthouse before broken by Clint, the younger man sounds tired. "You're still pissed at us, aren't you? This whole Loki thing?"

Tony squeezes his eyes shut and breathes out his nose. Feeling his grip on the mug tighten but he reigns in his emotions enough not to throw it. Check him out; he deserves a gold star on his chart for anger management. "Yep."

"I wish you wouldn't be. This whole Loki thing is crazy. Bruce was only worried about you. We're all worried about you."

"Me? Because I was the one bleeding on the floor and scared half to death? Because it can't have been Loki, oh no. We only attack and hurt here as heroes, we don't help." Swearing he swipes his hand out, cutting Clint off before the man can even start. "I'm getting sick and tired of people being worried about me. In fact, stop it. Right now." He spits the words, standing to his feet and handing the mug back to Clint, looking to the open door so he doesn't have to see the hurt in the man's eyes.

He needs to get back down to the med floor and find out what Banner's found and kick everyone out of his tower. Maybe then, just maybe, he'll be able to sort out the alphabet soup his thoughts have turned into.

Clint steps out of his room in a rush, clinging to the doorjamb and watching Tony walk down the hall. "We worry because we're your friends Stark." He says loud enough that his voice more than carries around Tony.

"Maybe I don't need friends." He retorts back, padding barefoot across the cold marble to the lift. "I have Jarvis. Dummy. Butterfingers. The fucking coffee maker. Those are my friends." He'd slam the elevator door if at all possible; instead it slides shut mockingly calm.

Trapped in the elevator with his list of shitty friends. AI and advanced robotics. Not a human on that roll call at the moment. His throat burns for a drink and his fist itch to hit, anything to drown out the loneliness. Fuck.

He spends a moment listening to his own breath echoing around the elevator as he tries to get ready for the grim scene he knows the med floor is going to be.

Tony's just not sure if he dreads facing Bruce again or Loki's prognosis more.


	3. Chapter 3

It's odd how life can go from sudden violent animation to a dead stop in the span of a heartbeat, or a door opening as is the case, like a plug has been pulled and all of his spirit is draining out from him.

Tony's far more familiar with the frenzied motion. His whole life has been a matter of action; going, doing, working, living, and dying. The bone creaking feel of sudden inactivity nearly knocks the wind from his lungs. Even though he's still moving, that switch has been flipped. His gut has bottomed out and his heart is nothing but a calm babble in his chest.

Bruce doesn't look up from where he's working a thread into Loki's skin, stitching a neat line across the angry infected wound, it looks like a jagged mouth and Tony finds himself wondering how much of mythology is true.

"Thank you for waiting."

"Well. I'm a good guy like that." Tony sighs, coming no closer than halfway across the room, as close as he can get before the smell of blood starts to tickle at the back of his throat. Stuffing his hands in his pant pockets and trying to find heat and activity but Bruce and Loki are cold twin black holes. Slow and silent and providing no warmth as their gravity sucks him in to his death.

Clearing his throat, he looks away from Bruce working over Loki's body and finds himself a place to sit, his bare feet slapping across the floor as he walks to an extra table despite the army of chairs at the side of the room. Hoisting himself up and letting his legs swing.

He can count on one hand the number of times in his life he'd waited so calm and quiet and they're not the most pleasant of memories; most of them involved his father's work shop. Watching Howard pour his attention and love over projects and always silently longing it was him.

One of them was waiting in a hospital ER as doctors tried to figure out how to tell him he was alone in the world now.

Another was the dark moments in a cave as Yinsen slipped out a door.

Pulling himself away from that bitter reminder of life, he watches Bruce's red stained latex covered hands prodding and working efficiently.

Fuck, that's disgusting.

It's even harder to look at Loki though. The powerful creature reduced to a feeding bed for merciless machines; tentacles of IV lines providing blood, antibiotics, maybe if Bruce was nice, a little Morphine. His torso swathed in that god awful betadine orange and pristine white bandages. Loki's so pale it's hard to tell in some places where the bandages end and Tony's sure the first thing he's going to do is help the guy get a little sun.

Bruce's voice nearly startles him out of his skin. "He's doing well, you know."

"Oh?" He asks, his voice breaking a little and forcing him to clear his throat before trying again.

"Yep. Still a fighter, as if there was any question this mess was Loki." Bruce snips of his thread and sprays a topical antibiotic over the stitches before taping down a bandage. "Not that I doubted."

Tony rolls his eyes and leans his hands back against the table behind him. "Mm, right, because you can believe it's Loki, but you can't believe I want to help him."

Bruce's shoulders sink a little with his head, altering the dose of the IV drip before pulling a thin sheet up to Loki's shoulders. Tony watches him spend a moment fidgeting before finally turning on heel to face him.

"Can you calm down a little, please?"

"I'm calm. If I was any more calm I'd be in a coma. Can you just-" Tony breathes out his nose with a frown, shifting foreword so he can rest his arms on his knees, unable to get comfortable. "Just tell me how Loki is."

Bruce nods and seems a little calmed by changing subjects off of the shit mess called their friendship. Pushing his glasses up his nose he pulls a chair across the floor, the nail on chalkboard scrape is- yeah. Ouch. Tony can't help but glance over to Loki just to make sure the god of chaos is still sleeping because he's pretty sure that sound just woke the dead.

Bruce flinches before settling into the seat and snapping off his gloves. "Sorry. Ah. Loki is obviously stable. He's on a blood drip, type O because I don't know what type he is and I'm just winging this on a hope and a prayer that his body doesn't reject it. He's not exactly human."

"God. Adopted. Thor. Asgard. We already knew that." Tony tries to wave him on but Bruce holds up a finger asking for silence. Shocked, Tony gives in and settles himself for a lecture.

"Yes. Aliens or gods as our ancient ancestors saw them. I never had a chance to run any kind of biological or physical studies when Thor was out and I'm regretting that now. This is… it's all a little new to me. There's human physiology and then there's… that." He says, hooking his thumb over his shoulder at Loki. "And that's not human physiology at all."

Arching an eyebrow Tony looks at Bruce, watching him straiten his wrinkled shirt cuffs. "What are you saying?"

"I'm saying I'm working blind here. Loki and Thor may look human on the outside but inside it's a different world. I did what I could to stitch his insides back together again but I'm loathe to do too much. It would be easy to do as much damage as good. I'm sorry." Bruce says, spreading his palms out like that explains everything and the man looks sincerely worried that it's not enough.

Pinching his nose as the pressure in his head threatens to mount an attack into an all out ache Tony digests the information. It's adding up to his pheromone theory. The whole god thing was always a little hard for him to swallow. "So what kind of damage are we looking at that you can identify?"

Bruce rests his elbows on his knees and scrubs his hand though his mop of hair, gathering himself together for what he has to say. It's a look Tony's seen on doctors before, when he was nothing but a teen, when they'd examined the arc in his chest. Palladium poisoning and car accidents playing Ping-Pong in his head even though those two times feel a million years ago, so long it's not even memories from this lifetime. Tony's abused gut clenched a little in worry making him regret not stopping by the kitchen long enough to grab some Tums.

"He has a number of lacerations that are already infected, from the look of them, have been for weeks. I don't really know what he's been through but it's been going on for a while. Considering the scramble that make up his insides, I've done my best to stitch together what looked nicked. He has defensive wounds on his wrists and ankles from struggles if you don't mind me making an educated guess."

Tony shakes his head and waves a hand. "No. Guess away, I'd come to the same conclusion myself when I saw them. I don't see anyone laying still and letting that happen anyways."

Bruce nods a little and clears his throat. "He's also emaciated but I'm not going to in tube him."

"Thanks, that's just disgusting sounding," Tony looks away from Bruce and eyes Loki's unmoving body across the way. The machines chatter filling the space during the lull in their conversation.

"It's not pretty. Tony, I want you to prepare yourself. He's in bad shape." Bruce says in a small soft voice, settling back and glancing over at his patient as one of the machines gives an alarm. Tony frowns hard at the machines and hates the technology he can't understand or read. It must not be anything dramatic though because Bruce simply looks back with a shrug. "For now, he's on antibiotics and pain killers. All we can do is monitor him and hope Thor comes back."

Tony looks down at his swinging bare feet and feels the gravity of the whole world squeeze at his heart.

There's just one problem with that; Thor didn't look like he was coming back any time soon. The thunder god had looked to Loki like he was giving Loki up and the broken pain in his eyes was as bright as the sun, readable to even the emotionally obtuse Tony Stark.

With a heavy sigh and a heavier heart he slips off the table passing Bruce to get to Loki. "Clint came by my room. Your posse has yet to leave."

Banner blinks slowly but after a sigh he seems to adjust to the fact that the conversation on Thor isn't going to continue. "Do I need to go reset his nose?"

Tony shakes his head no, scooping long cool fingers into his hand and feeling them twitch every so softly against his palm. "He tried to give me a bunch of bullshit about friends and caring; if he got any fuller of emotions I was going to have Jarvis play John Denver."

"It's not bullshit Tony." Bruce says, shifting in the chair to look at him, hooking his arm over the back of it. "We are your friends and we do care. Even if you don't want it."

"I don't-" Tony closes his mouth hard, his jaw aching with the force of it. The words 'I don't give a shit' refusing to come up, sitting cold and dead in his belly instead. He closes his eyes for a moment and lets his whirlpool thoughts slip away, drowned out by the beat of his own heart and the hum of medical equipment. When he opens his eyes again the room is a washed out blur that he has to blink clear.

"Let me ask you one thing Tony."

"If I say no, will you go away?" He asks with a dead smile over his shoulder before shaking his head. "What?"

"If you can't trust anyone, how do you expect him to trust you?"

All the air leaves the room, or maybe that's just his lungs turning to concrete but he tries to play it off by rubbing the pad of his thumb gently over the white bandages around Loki's bird like wrist. Dragging in a ragged breath that sends a shiver down his spine. "What?"

"That's your goal here, right?" Banner asks and when Tony looks to him his brown eyes aren't judging. He almost wants them to be, the bare honesty in them now is hard to face. He can deal with failure and judgment, he always has, but open emotional honesty is so fresh and new to him that he can't handle it. Looking quickly back down to Loki as Bruce continues. "You want him to trust you, to trust us. And maybe switch sides. Right? That's why you agreed to do this."

"That's not… no." Tony whines, dropping Loki's hand and scrubbing his palms over his face before carding his fingers though his hair, wincing as still damp locks catch and tangle a little. "I don't want to convert him. This isn't about converting or sides or good or evil or Shield. I don't want to use him."

"Then what is it about?" Bruce asks, turning back to face away from Tony once more. He spends a moment staring at the back of the man's head before looking back down to Loki. Watching the rise and fall of that slim chest, the flutter of his pulse at his neck, absorbing the subtle signs of life.

Licking his lips he glances about for a chair, deciding as those long elegant fingers twitch against the table, seeking contact, he needs to stay right here. "I just want to help him."

Seeing that he's not getting any clearer of an answer than that Bruce rises to his feet slowly, moving like his back is stiff. Tony more than familiar with the achy shuffle of feet; the similarities to him when he's coming out of the lab after a fourteen hour bender behind a workbench.

"He's likely to wake up and murder you. All of us. I've seen him pissed before but I get the feeling it was child play compared to the wrath this will incur."

And how further from the truth could that be…

"No he won't."

"You sound pretty sure about that." Bruce says, twisting his hands together and watching Tony as he grabs a rolling chair, setting himself up next to the god's bed and anchoring himself to Loki's hand once more. Hunkering down for a long wait.

There's no way in hell he's telling Bruce why Tony knows how Loki feels right now. That when he wakes up he's more likely to be terrified and so alone and only after time will that turn to anger if no one intervenes.

Breathing out a sigh he shakes his head no, denying Bruce any explanations. No one, not even Pepper has heard the full story of what happened to him down in that cave. Yinsen is a name that hasn't left his mouth in almost two full years and it still is too soon.

"You shit heads aren't leaving any time soon, are you?" He groans, picking at the tape on the bandage about Loki's wrist, pulling the tape back and smoothing it back down again flatter. Fixing wrinkles in the soft white bandages. Fixing the little things where he can so he doesn't feel like such a useless tool.

Glancing up as Bruce says nothing Tony frowns hard. He could always force the issue. Down the suit and physically throw the three out but the time and effort for that kind of stunt is lost to him in his lethargic state so he'll stick to crude remarks and glares. It's a tactic that had worked well enough to get him out of board meetings.

Sniffing he looks back down to Loki's limp hand in his. "I don't want you people here when he wakes up."

"Then I'll make sure Steve and Clint stay off this floor but we're not leaving Tony. I'm not. If for no other reason, you don't know how to care for him."

"Funny. You said you don't either." He says more than a little aware of the bite to his tone, turning his chair a little so he can look up at Banner, trying his best to loom over the man from a seated position.

Holding his hands up Bruce flinches, the man deflating a little. "We'll be here Tony, for when you need us. At least till he wakes up."

Tony doesn't move from his spot as the door closes behind Bruce, trapping him alone with his chaotic disaster.

"I don't need them. We don't need them." He says under his breath, bringing his head down till his brow is resting against Loki's and his intertwined fingers.

It's easier to think without an audience. Getting lost in examining the elegant hand in his and drowning in the ocean of beeping and whirling machines.

He doesn't have to force himself to remember back to that cave, the memories come back well enough on their own. Splashing against his mind like a poisonous mixing pot of emotions.

Tony's chuckle ghost across their hands as he wallows in the irony of picking apart memories that he's tried his hardest to forget for many years now. He's searching though them methodically, trying to keep the burning emotions at a clinical distance to the best of his abilities as he navigates though them. Seeking the words Yinsen had said that had truly changed things for Tony, picking apart all of their conversations in search of the magical phrase that had made everything better for him.

He can't find it though. No matter how hard he analyzes everything the wise man said, no one word, no sentence or conversation comes out as a definitive answer.

"I wish you were here." He says softly to himself and if he strains hard enough he can almost here Yinsen's soft voice replying back, '_but I am not, Stark_.'

O0o.

Tony spends a grand total of three days in a haze of unfamiliar inactivity. Loki acting as Schrödinger's cat in this chapter of his life; neither good nor evil, a blank slate that Tony itches to leave his mark on. To alter and fix and heal and if it helps him in the long run, if he can figure out the magical formula that Yinsen had seen so easily, then yay him.

He spends most of those three days without sleep and when weariness drags him down he doesn't dream of lightning or his balcony and the change of mental surroundings should be nice if not for how wild his mind runs with the now blank slate of sleep. Bringing foreword all kinds of vivid nightmarish memories he'd been fighting his waking hours to keep at bay.

The blistering sun and heat of Afghanistan burns him one moment only to give way to the blind panic and cold of his workshop floor. Feet separating him from a glowing salvation only for the room to melt into bitter cold miles. Snow cutting into his bones and pain shredding his soul into bloody frozen ribbons

Ice cracks and breaks and then he's falling, not though the center of a planet but though space itself the blackness sinking it's inky claws into his psyche and raping him of his purity with it's evil.

So Tony avoids sleep much like he'd avoid plague ridden zombies.

Instead eating when Bruce brings him food, reading and talking to Jarvis. He leaves only when Bruce comes in to clean the wounds, showering and returning to his post freshly clothed but no cleaner in spirits.

He spends most of his time though examining the slumbering god.

He studies the way Loki twitches in his sleep and responds to his voice when the nightmares and fevers get too much. Long fingers holding onto his, pain drawn face turned to him like the god is seeking out the warmth of a sun that Tony somehow holds in his chest.

Every breath Loki takes is a miracle in Tony's opinion although Bruce says as the days pass that he is healing. By the third morning, the fever has broken and infection is starting to pass.

Tony's beginning to look a little dead himself though. Last time he caught his own reflection in a mirror it had actually startled him. Pale beneath his tan and shadows under his eyes, he realizes the last good sleep he did get was probably somewhere two months ago before everything in his life turned to hell.

When did his life separate itself into Before Avengers and After Avengers?

It's a wordless groan, the cram of syllables throaty and rough, that finally gives Tony something to do other than vegetate. His head snapping up from the tablet in his hands and he can feel his cheeks heat under the tired green eyes that greet his.

"Wow. Hey! You're awake!"

Bruce had promised many times over that the mild coma that Loki had slipped into was probably his body trying to heal and fight infection but that didn't make it any less scary for Tony.

Now though, now that Loki's looking at him without fear but more in silent question Tony grins like a full blown idiot. His first genuine smile for days.

"Shit, check you out. How do you feel? Do you want something to drink? Are you in pain, I can get you anything you want." He rambles, filling the three days worth of quiet in the span of a few seconds.

Loki doesn't seem quite so amused though, wincing at the too loud sound of Tony's voice and closing his eyes without saying a word. His thin lips twisting into a grimace as his hand lifts, trembling, up to his throat. Feeling the bandages there.

"Oh. Okay, sorry." Tony breaths out, softer this time, getting to his feet and retrieving a near by cup and filling it with lukewarm water from a waiting pitcher. He should page Bruce down so he can poke and prod Loki now that the god is awake but Tony wants this time to themselves for his own reasons.

Loki's eyes crack open a sliver as he approaches the bed again, wearily looking down to the plastic cup in his hand. "It's water. We've been keeping you hydrated with an IV but you really should try to drink something."

Loki looks skeptical at best, licking at his cracked lips as he thinks about it.

It's all in the trust. Part of why he doesn't want Bruce just walking in and steaming over everything with medical procedures and no bedside manner. Tony's not sure but he's willing to bet these first few moments are important, maybe more so than the hazy hours a few nights ago that Loki was swimming in and out of consciousness.

After an oddly not uncomfortable span of time Loki gives a small tilt of his head in acceptance. His arms shaking with the effort to try and sit up.

"No no. Let me help; it's why I'm here." Tony says with a tense smile, easily slipping into nurse mode as he shifts the cup to his other hand so he can slip his arm behind Loki's shoulders. Flinching a little as the god hisses in a breath at the pain caused by moving. Ever stubborn as his hands limply fumble to grab onto the cup and steady it at his lips.

Tony flinches and looks away as Loki chokes more on the few sips of water than he actually drinks it.

"Bruce says the cut on your throat most likely perforated your windpipe, so ah, drinking, talking, just about everything's going to hurt till it's healed." He says softly, just to fill the quiet air with a noise other than machines and Loki's wheezed breath. The same sounds having filled the room for three days and really it's like being trapped in an elevator with the same song playing on repeat. He's pretty sure that it's one of the levels of hell.

Loki's hands push against his and his eyes close, a shudder shaking down his lean spine as Tony helps him ease back down against the pillow. The god looks worse awake then he did asleep, the sluggish life to him such a pale comparison to the man who'd thrown him from a window it's disquieting.

Tony'd almost have the anger and snark, this is a more than a little horrifying for him to handle. Talk about putting himself out of his league.

Feeling like a big loser as he clears his throat and settles himself back into his chair, setting the plastic cup at his feet for easy access. "Are you in pain?"

Loki's lips twist into a frown and he gives a small jerky nod, settling everything to Tony. He has to bite the bullet and get Bruce in here because for all of Tony Stark's wonders and abilities, he has no fucking clue how to work the morphine drip that's attached to the IV.

"I'll be back with the doc." He says briskly, not even making it to his feet before Loki's hand makes a grab for him. Holding on to the edge of Tony's shirt with what must be the last of his strength, eyes wide and scared.

"He can give you something for the pain." Tony explains, swallowing the lump in his throat. Keeping his eyes down on the hand holding his shirt, grip so tight that Loki's knuckles are standing out and snow white.

Loki gives a jerky shake of his head and when Tony finally has the courage to meet his eyes, sees that they're as hard and sure as steel; A big fat no.

"He can help." He tries one last time but Loki only tugs his hand down, indicating for Tony to sit once more.

Okay then.

Only once he shifts to pull the chair closer does Loki let go of his shirt, his hand hanging limp off the bed like he lacks the energy to even pull it back. Sitting on his numb ass once more he moves Loki's hand back onto the bedside and fixes the IV's feeding into it, fidgeting under the god's tired questioning gaze.

"You've been asleep for three days, I don't know if that's normal for you when you're hurt. But you don't normally get hurt easily do you? I mean, you took that beating from the Hulk easy enough." He says just to fill the air again, talking enough for the both of them as he fiddles with the thin clear tubes that attach to Loki's forearm. Loki doesn't seem insulted by the Hulk comment so Tony keeps going, knowing his emotions are bleeding though each word he says because his own voice is raw feeling. His throat lined with sandpaper.

"Your brother hasn't come back yet. Banner, Rogers and Clint are still here but I haven't seen the other two for a few days. I think their hiding down in the lower floors. There are spare rooms there. I don't know if you explored the tower that much on your last visit. The arctic's all my design."

He stops when he realizes he's rambling, talking more than enough for the both of them. Clearing his throat he nods, knowing he should shut his mouth and let the tired man sleep. Hopefully for a shorter span than three days.

Loki's fingers hook around his wrist however when he goes to pull away, giving a soft pain filled huff. Nodding to Tony and arching a delicate eyebrow, a silent request to continue. There is something in his sliver green eyes that make his bones melt and his heart calm in his chest. A smile twists at the corner of Tony's lips and he settles himself, holding Loki's hand and smoothing his thumb over the back of it gently.

"Things have been oddly slow with you here, I've spent most of my time here you know. You should be thankful; I normally don't leave my lab other than for leggy blonds."

What's quickly becoming a familiar smirk graces Loki's face as his eyes close.

"Yeah. Maybe my tastes are more to the leggy brunets right now. No need to rub it in." He says with a low chuckle, leading into a story of a time in MIT when he'd bedded a lovely brunet only to find out her father was his Calculus with Theory teacher's daughter. Stojanoska had forced him to take the final exam the next day, and then threw a fit from hell when the great Tony Stark had passed with a ninety eight.

He goes on for over an hour, long after Loki's fingers have fallen slack against his wrist, and he's drifted off to sleep. Carrying the one sided conversation bights about a comforting ease to Tony, like with the robotics in his lab.

Filling the quiet sanitized space with more stories of MIT and Pepper and explosions and how stupid reindeer are. Pointless things that he'd never say to anyone else. The endless chatter to himself a soothing balm to his soul as much as it eases the sleeping god.

It's frustrating that he can't remember if Yinsen talked to him like this when he'd first woken up, that memories he'd fought so hard to forget, now refused to surrender the answers he's seeking. His past is unwilling to give up its secrets; he's just going to have to settle for what he can do here and now.

It's only after his voice has gone rough and his throat raw does he stop, settling with his fist against his stubble cheek. Searching out the contrast between his blunt tan fingers and Loki's pale elegant ones. The hushed tone of the door opening bringing a frown to his face.

"Eh… Steve made some food. I don't really know what it is. It's good though and I thought you'd want some."

Clint then.

Drawing his eyes up he schools his expression into one of boredom as he looks to the archer balancing a plate of food in one hand and a dew covered beer in his other. Setting his load on a nearby examination table Clint dusts his immaculate hands on his pants and shuffles his feet a little, staring at Loki's sleeping form.

"How is he?"

"He could be better. Don't touch him." Tony says, laying Loki's hand out gently over the god's thin rising and falling chest. His back popping in protest as he stands to his feet and meanders over to the plate of food. "What the hell is this shit?"

"I don't know. He called it a casserole but it doesn't look like one to me."

Forking the breadcrumb crust and sniffing the cheesy aroma he decides it's more edible than anything he'd ever cooked and tries some, talking around the mouthful. "I didn't even know I had food in my kitchen."

Clint shrugs his shoulders, setting himself in Tony's chair and spinning it around to face Loki. As far as Tony cares it's too fucking close to Loki but at this point the man could be standing in the hall and it would be too near for his tastes. He stuffs a forkful of cheese and noodles into his mouth to stop himself from ripping into the other man. All he's done is sit, no harm in that. Yet.

"You know… if you want to take a shower, I can watch him for you." Clint says, tilting his head to indicate Loki; like Tony's spent the last three days babysitting a fucking cactus and he needed to define that he'll be watching the deity instead.

"Yeah. No." He says around a mouth full of actually good tasting food. "Bad idea for two reasons. One, didn't you want to skull fuck him with an arrow? And two? He's my… charge." He says, stuffing another fork full into his mouth before popping the cap on the bottle. He doesn't drink beer but he's willing to make the exception on the grounds that it's the first alcohol he's seen in a few days.

The bitter taste in his mouth washing down the food is like coming home from a very dry vacation.

"I'm just going to sit here." Clint huffs, lifting his head from examining his nails and giving Tony a grin. "Bruce kind of told us why you're doing this. I won't fuck your project up."

Oh?

"Really now? What did he say?" Considering Tony's answers was vague at the most when Bruce had asked him why. Taking the beer by the neck he abandons the food half finished and returning back to Loki's side, leaning his hip against the table and putting himself between the god and the archer.

"You wanted to try and get him to play with the good guys."

"Fuck." He swears, shaking his head. Every time he hears that, it sounds wrong to him. Sounds abusive, like he's using Loki. Like rubbing sandpaper down his spine, it's uncomfortable in a nerve splitting way.

Clint looks confused at the outburst. "That's not-"

"It is." Tony admits, looking over his shoulder and down to Loki. Maybe he's slumbering, maybe he's not. Loki's fingers twitching across the rough white sheet till they brush against his jean covered hip and Tony sets the bottle aside to grab it. The deity stilling once warm contact is made. "It's just… this isn't a brainwashing, this isn't fucking Star Wars, no join the force. I don't want to use him. I just want-" He stops himself, biting his lower lip in frustration.

There's another twitch of long fingers against his and he glances down to Loki. The silence between the two of them is nearly long enough for the next ice age to start and in the mean time Tony finishes his beer.

"I understand." Clint says roughly by the time the world is defrosting again, his voice rough with honesty that seems pried from him more than freely given. When Tony looks back to him the archer is staring across the space at the slumbering god of chaos, his slate eyes mapping everything he sees there.

He lets his mouth slant down into a frown; highly doubting that Clint knows anything about a situation like this.

"No. Don't give me that look." The archer huffs.

"What look? Am I giving a look?" Tony blinks, laying a hand on his chest in mock hurt. Shifting Loki's hand out of the way a little so he can hop up onto the table next to his side.

Clint rolls his eyes as Tony settles himself, his boot covered feet swinging as Loki's hand twitches against his hip once more, demanding attention even in his sleep. "You're giving that 'bullshit' look. I do. I really do understand."

Taking Loki's wandering hand back into his he wonders just how asleep the god is though all of this. Snake in the grass bastard he is. The little clever act makes Tony want to grin but he holds it in. "Maybe because it is."

Breathing out a heavy breath Clint leans back in the chair and stretches out his legs, hooking his ankles one over the other. Settling in despite the fact Tony wants to scream at him to leave. "When I was assigned to take out Natasha I made a different call. I saw something in her that no one else did. I didn't see in her some perfect Shield spy, or bullshit like that, all I saw was a life with so much potential being wasted and I knew I could help make it better."

"It's the same thing with you and him. The way you're staying close, protecting. I did the same shit with Tasha; I was on her like glue for those first few weeks when she was cleaning her life up. I guess I still am. The two of us are, well, you know."

Tony rolls his eyes; anyone would have to be blind to not see that the two Shield agents are deeply in love.

"What I'm trying to say here Tony, is I understand." Clint says, gesturing with his hand between Loki and Tony. "And in respect of that. I'm willing to help in any way I can. Either of you."

Arching an eyebrow he looks up from Loki finally, meeting Clint eye to eye. "So you don't want to shoot him?"

Clint makes a pinched face and shakes his head no. "Ah, actually I'd still like to do that, but I won't. How's that?"

Tony gives a little shrug of his shoulders and feels a natural smile tug at his mouth, twelve watt cocky son of a bitch grin. "I can live with that for now."

"So go take a shower, watch some TV. I'll babysit here for you." Clint says, slapping his hands together and giving Tony a gut wrenching _you're my friend now, right? _Smile.

Bastard.

He'd really like to sleep for eighty hours in a bed but that's not happening. Even just to be able to leave the med floor for longer than twenty minutes sounds like a fucked up slice of heaven.

"Steve still lingering around?"

Clint nods, "Food, remember dude?"

Tony shrugs and slips down from the table, watching Loki for a moment to see if the god is going to make any kind of protest to him leaving but he lays still and sleeps on. "I could always hope that he'd left after cooking."

"You need to get over him, Tony. Just go take a rest. Everything will be fine here. Me and Sleeping Beauty are just going to chill." Clint says, standing to his feet and shoving Tony along as he tries to linger on by Loki's side.

It feels wrong to leave the room. Every time Bruce forces him out it feels like Tony's left a part of himself behind and this time now with Clint, it's no different. With each step out that door and into the hall a hollow hole forms in his chest that has nothing to do with his arc.

He chalks it up to remembering that Yinsen never once left the cave with him; that maybe the proximity was part of the solution that he's not equating in but his gut knows its closer to something more animalistic. The need to protect and cherish what is his and no one else's.


	4. Chapter 4

Big FAT thank you shout out to the worlds best Beta ever glamourraisedfromperdition. Really, she deserves much worship. Without her most of this would just be drool.

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Follow my Tumblr to get updates and previews of fics as well as general frostiron goodness. Blank-ghost . Tumblr . com

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He'd never wanted his house empty so much before.

There was a time of his life, not long after MIT and his parents' death that abode ala Stark was always full. Parties and girls and general PR messes.

After Afghanistan and Obi there was the still constant influx of Pepper, Happy, and Rhodey.

Now?

Now he's trapped in a hell, the world bent on never giving him the time to contemplate the situation he's stuck in. When he needs empty and quiet, life has given him loud and busy.

To make it worse his home and sanctuary has been invaded by foul traitors in sheep's clothing. Bruce most of all. Tony's loath to see the man again; every visit he makes to the med bay has been a tense dance of mistrust and sorrow. He wants him out of his house, away from his god.

Tony tries to feel sorry, he tries to let Bruce back into the tight ring of friends that Tony actually trusts but he can't just help but not give a fuck.

Much to his distaste Steve is sitting at the dining area table; worrying a mug between his palms like some fifties era housewife when Tony comes off the lift. His normally perfect blond hair is forked out in all directions and showing signs of the captain having worried his fighters through it too many times.

He'd always liked this dining room, not that it was an overly used part of the tower. It's lit by an over hanging modern chandelier that sets the gray stone and neutral tones to the room into a golden glow of a eternal sunset long after the city outside the solid wall of windows is slumbering under nights warm blanket.

Now it seems a bit stuffy and over decorated compared to the sanitized med floor.

Rogers stays frustratingly quiet as Tony lingers in the doorway, leaving it to him to break the silence. "That food, it was good."

Great. Stress has reduced him to caveman vernacular. 'Food good'-'Steve friend.'

Steve's blond head nods slowly and he mumbles a soft 'thanks' so low that Tony barely catches it..

Tony pinches his nose and rolls his neck to work out the knot that's formed back there, well on it's way to scoliosis knowing his luck. He's just too tired to do this again, emotionally hung from a laundry line and left for the birds to sit on when all he really wants is to just hide away in his lab/bed/any surface that's not an office chair.

Rubbing a hand through his hair he nods his head a little and turns away. Fine. If Rogers isn't going to say anything, than he's not going to either. For once in his life, he's willing to let quiet rule the room.

"If you want me gone Tony, I'll leave. I'll respect you and leave here." Rogers says breaking the delicate silence anyways, lifting his head from examining the contains of his mug. His broad shoulders look like their supporting the weight of the world and boy does Tony know how that feels.

Rogers, stick in the mud as he is, isn't the main problem here.

Yes. He wants his house empty, the time and space to think and be alone with Loki. But Steve is- was- a friend. Is he still? The man, much like Clint was only dancing to Bruce's flute; duplicity by association.

He's shaking his head no to Steve isn't he?

Shit. He is.

Breathing out a heavy breath he stuffs his hands into his pants pockets and rocks back on his heels. "I don't mind if you stay actually. Just don't talk to me. Or look at me."

Steve's cheeks color in a blush but there is a smile tilting to his lips. "You're an asshole, Stark."

"I see you've got my business card then. Don't burn down my kitchen." He fires back, giving a smile of his own and offering Rogers the one finger salute before striding down the hall with a little more bounce to his step. He hasn't won any wars but he's victor of a few private battles and at this point this willing to take anything.

Coming into his penthouse bedroom, he stops, his feet gluing to the marble floor and staring into the moon lit room with so much longing he can feel it. Need unfurling in his gut and sleep draws his shoulders down.

How many days has it been since he's slept in a bed- his eidetic mind supplies him with the answer of roughly one week. Between the benders on the couch and penthouse floor and the self induced insomnia in the medical floor with Loki. It's been almost one whole week.

The draw is uncontrollable. Groaning he ambles foreword in a zombie like lurch. "Oh bed. Beautiful bed. I love you bed. Jarvis, I love my bed."

"Dully noted, Sir."

Snide bastard.

Kicking his boots off as he falls face first into the expensive sea of silk sheets, practically swimming to the middle of the bed. Rolling over so his face is pressed into the whip cream mountains of pillows and breathing in till his chest is tight. Holding the breath. His bed smells clean and inviting; not like the medical floor.

He didn't come here to sleep but now that his face is shoved into his pillows and his body is enveloped by the bed like a sea slug's swallowed him whole, he just can't move again.

There is no emergency in the world that can tear him from this. Not even his whack as hell nightmares are going to fuck with this little personal moment between him and Mr. California king.

Smothering himself into the pillows he groans lowly, maybe if he just suffocated here and now, it would all be ooookay.

He wonders idly if Loki would be willing to hold off in his recovery as Tony channels his inner Rip and sleeps for the next decade. Probably not, he's such a demanding princess.

"Sir. You're needed down on the Medical floor."

Speak of the devil…

Turning his head so he can breathe, he scrunches his face up, brows coming down low. He couldn't have left Clint with Loki longer than twenty minutes, but now the sun is shining warm through the windows and painting colorful patterns across the sheets throwing him off.

His limbs feel stiff and rubbery at the same time as he sits up only to flop back down into the cloud of sink. Mouth a minefield of nasty tastes.

"Jarvis, what time is it?"

The display on the window comes to life, glittering in the arid sunlight of summer. "The time is one fifty three PM Sir, Today is Tuesday, September the eighth. The weather is projected to be in the high nineties with an eighty five percent chance of humidity, dropping down to the low nineties after sunset."

Blinking slowly he see's that ten hours has passed. Given that the time was one blur of black and nothingness he breaths out a sigh.

Well fuck!

Rubbing the sleep from his eyes he grunts, shifting to scratch the his side where his shirt has left an indent into his skin. "What happened? Why didn't you wake me up?"

It's the fact that Jarvis actually hesitates for a moment that sends a bucket of ice down Tony's back and the thrill of the bed is gone. "You were sleeping sir, I've only awoken you on request by Rogers, Agent Barton has reported Loki missing."

Loki. Oh god.

Loki. The resident god of chaos and mischief is missing and hurt in his tower.

Nothing in the world could serve as a better wake up call at that moment.

He sits up in a rush and flings himself off the edge of the bed, making it to his feet only by a achievement of miraculous balance and acrobats honed from years of fleeing from unwanted bedmates. His head slower than his body and the room tips as his equilibrium tries to keep up with the sudden change of pace from peaceful rest to frantic motion.

"How did he lose him? He's a vegetable! Scan the tower, Find him!" He screeches, realizing his own voice is as pinched as a crack whore yelling at the cops to 'take that bitch to jail!' Tripping over his own discarded boots on the way out the door and into the hall.

"In process sir, Banner and Rogers have gathered in the med rooms to try and locate the missing-"

"Oh, wonderful." He huffs as he hightails it past the lift and takes the stairs down two at a time, his bare feet nearly slipping on a step before he rights himself and runs on till his lungs are screaming and he's panting for breath.

Crap he's out of shape.

His side is aching something like a bitch as he rounds the corner into the med floor, Steve's head lifts up and there's not a smile between the three of them. Bruce- a dark cloud over an already raining shit kind of day- is prodding a clean bandage to Clint's bleeding face.

"Shit." He wheezes and chokes and thanks the gods that aren't raving lunatics that he'd never picked up smoking.

"That was a hell of a run, why did you build this tower so big, Rogers, you're fired. What? Do you have pitchforks and torches too? The villagers have gathered Jarvis. We must find the beast!" He makes a show of waving his hands around as he fishes his lungs out of his mouth and breaths like a normal human.

"This isn't funny, Stark." Steve says with a serious expression carved into his stony face.

Right, back to the Stark. Tony glares a little at Steve and shifts his attention to the only other person in the room who doesn't have the stick of virtue shoved up their ass. "Clint. You lost him?"

Clint turns a few different shades of red and shuffles on his feet, backing away from Bruce's gentle touch. Glancing to the open door to the room Loki had been situated in for the last three days like the missing god is going to appear and save him from the trouble. It would be cute and endearing if not for the bitter burn of neglected trust. All he had to do was watch Loki for five fucking minutes.

Clint's shoulders do a little bunch up kind of shrug. "He-ah- just went missing?"

"He… ah? Clint." He groans, rubs a hand through his hair and claps his hand to his friend's shoulder. Counting from ten to one slowly as he tries to calm the firestorm building in his head. He has to clasp his teeth together to the point they ach in his mouth to stop from wanting to scream every profane word he knows at the younger man.

"I need to prep some tranquilizers and you need to seriously think of calling Shield out here for backup." Bruce says behind them and Tony's ten to one count down falls apart.

Shield will find Loki alright. They'll find him and destroy him. Take what little broken pieces are left of the god and grind them to salt. There will be no Loki for Thor to return to, no way-word god for Asgard to come for; Loki will be a stain on Fury's boot and nothing more. And Tony… Tony will-

Tony has to blink back the white haze from his mind, his thoughts too sharp to violent. Rage boiling and atoms colliding in his head sending all of his thoughts to ash with a nuclear explosion of 'oh fuck'.

"Can you please tell me what the fuck you did with my god!?" His voice rises and sifts pitch at the end like puberty was yesterday for him. His hold tightening as he frog marches Clint backwards into the med room, the archer doesn't flinch as his back is rammed into the wall. All of his sorrow contained in his ever honest eyes.

"I had to take a piss. He must have been awake and waiting. When I got out he…" Clint trails off into an incomprehensible babble and his tongue makes an appearance to dab at his bleeding lip.

So Loki laid in wait and attacked his capture in Tony's disappearance.

"How long has he been awake?" Bruce asks from across the room, his back a tense line as he preps a needle. Ramming it into the rubber top of a small bottle with precision.

"He woke up for roughly an hour before Clint showed up with dinner." Tony hisses, pushing Clint against the wall in an angry but pointless shove before letting him go. The Shield Archer makes like wallpaper and stays glued in place with dinner plate sized eyes.

The food.

Why the fuck did he fall asleep that long? Was it drugged? Was he drugged to sleep?

"Did you drug me?" He rounds on Bruce, and the man looks honestly confused. His ruffled brown hair standing up like a representation of his opinion, all dog with his hackles raised. Tony's strides eating up the distance between him and the mellow doctor. "What the fuck did you-"

"Sir. Loki has been located." Jarvis cuts in and from the projected tone of his voice, he sounds incredibly relived.

Because punching Bruce for a second time in under a week is just a bad idea.

"Where?" he asks, flipping Bruce off instead of hitting him. Clint and Rogers scrambling out of his way as he starts across the room in their direction.

Their watching him with sad scared eyes, like he's gone mad and they don't know how to react to seeing it.

Maybe he has.

"He is within the medical room sir. My scans show three life forms; you and Banner are the only one accounted for on the surveillance cameras. " Jarvis informs.

Son of a bitch, snake in the grass, Loki.

"Get out. Get back." He huffs, closing the door on Steve and Clint's nose before they can rush in. Bruce securing the needle in his hand, tapping out bubbles. "I said out, Bruce."

"Here then. You know how to use it." Bruce says, holding out the hypodermic. A frown twisting his brows down over his face as Tony crosses his arms over his chest obviously displeased with Tony's answer.

He can get in line with everyone else he's ever disappointed for all the fucks Tony gives.

Tony's not tranquilizing Loki again. For all they know its part of why he went nearly vegetable for three whole days. The enigma of his physiology and reaction to common drugs is too unknown for Tony's tastes; too big of a question mark for them to go pumping the deity full of every pharmaceutical they can.

"No. No more tranquils."

Bruce pinches his nose like he's fighting back a headache and Tony hopes it's just that and not anger. "He attacked Clint."

"He struck out at someone who's previously threatened to kill him after waking up in an unfamiliar environment. Get the fuck out so I can find him." Tony waves his hand to the door with a little bow, throwing theatrics in just to defuse a little of the tension in the room and turns away from Bruce.

He takes in the medical room, searching it out for hiding places. Somewhere that the security cameras aren't seeing. Looking up at the black eyes on the roof he tries to judge were the blind spots are. Loki's smart enough to know exactly what security cameras are, he'd used it to reveal himself in Stuttgart.

Loki was thinking a lot more clearly than… less driven on instinct and the need to safeguard himself away.

"Get out, Banner."

Bruce sighs softly, the needle making a soft noise against the steel table he sets it on somewhere close to Tony's side. "We'll be right out those doors, Tony."

"Good. Get."

Tony looks down at the rows of cabinets that line the wall under a sturdy counter, ruling that out on the fact he couldn't see Loki fitting his lanky body down there even with how bone skinny he is.

The soft hiss of the door closing before latching shut tells him he's alone.

Clenching and unclenching his fists a few times his knuckles pop loud in quiet, glancing over his shoulder to the closed door just to vindicate his own paranoia.

"You can come out. They're gone." He calls out, moving across the room and making sure to walk loud enough that his footsteps can be heard coming.

The supply cabinet across the room is close to the bathroom door and closed snug. Tony's unfamiliar with how big it is but he's sure it's better than under the counter.

Pulling it open slowly he steps back with the out swing of the door. The harsh overhead lights painting a white slice in the dark closet, cold tile and cream sheet. Pale skin and paler green eyes revealed in the harsh light.

Some small part of him was ready to see Loki, full Asguardian battlement, waiting on the other side. Blood and wrath and death. The entire book of revelation bound in ivory skin and poison green eyes.

He'd rather like that.

The Loki that greets him on the other side of the door is feral and pale, his green eyes blown wide in all encompassing terror. He's capable of damage in this state, but just as easily damaged. No apocryphal angel of death here.

No need for Shield or tranqs.

"It's me. It's okay." He breaths out, whisper soft as he lowers himself down to his knees to be level with Loki as he cowers further into the corner of the closet. The sheet clenched in shaking fingers tight to his bone thin body.

Even if he didn't see himself in the way Loki quakes in fear it would still twist at his heart.

Loki shifts a little, eyes taking in Tony's mused hair and rumpled clothing before shifting enough to see though the open door. His pale eyes searching as much of the room that he can see, resting his weight foreword on a palm to the floor. Twitching back as Tony shifts a little.

Tony's never been around very many animals before, but he's sure this is what one looks like when scared.

"They're all out in the hall." Tony assures him. Lifting a hand up, reaching slowly to take Loki's hand, noting the soft stain of blood where he ripped out his IV. The god scrutinizes him for a moment with almost as much strength behind his look as he had when commanding an army. Coming to the conclusion that Tony is still trustable he offers up his hand, all tension bleeding from his body as Tony soothes his thumb over the pulse fluttering on his wrist.

Tony resists the urge to offer condolences and excuses that will bring no comfort to the chaos god, letting the man ground himself and stable out on his own. Tony acting as a wall of comfort and warmth. It doesn't take long for Loki's trembling body to be pressing against his, the god all but climbing into his lap like Tony had invited him to do that first night.

Gently wrapping his arms around the trembling deity Tony closes his eyes and burrs his nose in the inky, dirty hair.

"Sorry." He breathes out, his fingers tracing figure eights along Loki's spine, the sheet making hushed noises between their skin.

"I needed sleep, buddy. You need- Fuck. I can't keep staying in here, I can't keep you here. It gives me the creeps. I'll take you up to the penthouse but there is no way in hell I'm keeping you here for another hour."

Loki's eyes flit to up him and he nods his head. Swallowing a few times and flinching as his throat injury must flare up. Seeming to come to the conclusion that talking is still a no go his head nods fast. Untangling himself from Tony's hold and shifting to his knees so he can rise.

"We can get your naked ass some clothes. You've got a great body, mind you a little skinny, but there's only so much pasty white ass I can handle." He offers with a wolfish grin, standing to his feet and taking Loki by hand and elbow to help him up.

After a hesitant moment Loki rises to his feet. The deity teeters like a baby learning to walk, only he's a hundred plus pounds and already injured. Reaching out fast as Loki tumbles over his own coltish legs and they end up chest to chest again. Loki's warm breathe ghosting against his ear and he can swear he almost hears words there, whispered, half spoken. Undecipherable.

Grinning to hide his blush Tony holds tight to Loki as the god trembles and tries to get his feet back on solid ground. He's failing miserably as his bare feet do more skidding on the floor than standing; Tony's arms the only thing supporting his weight.

"Come on. Don't worry about it. I've got you. Here… arm here-" He loops one of Loki's arms about his shoulder and bends his knees before Loki can voice any style of protest. Barking out a laugh at the startled croak from the god of mischief as Tony picks him up off his feet bridal style.

Loki's warm body presses tight against his again and already his body is learning the fine curves that fit against his, the poke of ribs and whisper of breath on his skin. Not flinching from it as he tends to do. He doesn't take the time to contemplate that. Not now. Not here.

Tony feels very clothed and Loki feels very naked in his ill fit sheet and nothing else. The gods lanky arms wrapped tight around his neck and shoulders and his green eyes are wide, swirling debts of peridot and silver.

"I've got you." He says softly, swallowing and turning his attention from the god in his arms to navigating out the door.

"Jarvis tell the dumb-shits to move from the door." He grumbles, already feeling the strain of Loki's lean weight on his back. It's going to be a long trip up to the penthouse, that is if he can figure out how to get the door open with his hands full.

"Okay. We need to get you walking again soon. This is going to get tiring." He protests, glancing down to Loki who looks just as enthusiastic about being carried as Tony's spine is on the situation. "Don't give me that look. I'm the one carrying your ass."

Loki wrinkles up his nose for a second before a smile takes over, resting his head against Tony's shoulder.

Bravo. The deity has housebroken his very own Tony Stark and the sly bastard knows it.

The door opens for him as he approaches, thank you lords.

"Jarvis says- Oh." Clint's concerned face melts into a cool smile. The archer letting his eyes slide over how Loki is melted into Tony.

Steve peeks over Clint's shoulder with a perplexed look before smiling too, only his is far more innocent. "You found him." Rogers says, almost sounding as happy as a kid that found their lost puppy.

"He's being moved up to the penthouse. I can't keep staying in the fucking medical rooms."

Banner cuts though between Steve and Clint's shoulders. Loki's relaxed mass tensing slowly as the three men gather close. Their very proximity making the god anxious.

It's a bad situation made even worse and Tony's not ready yet to test if Loki really does have a secondary pheromone that causes fighting. They do enough of that on their own thankyouverymuch. "Move please."

Tony's ready for someone to argue, to say some bullshit line about how incredibly unsafe it is for him to let the murdering deity into his private rooms.

"You should try to get him to eat something. Soup would be best. Liquid diet for a while if you can." Bruce says, stuffing his hands in his pockets and tilting his head to look at Tony over his glasses. "I'm sure Steve would be willing to bring you up something for him."

Steve nods mutely by Banners side.

Huh.

If it wasn't for the fact the back of his neck itches of a hidden agenda the change of attitude would be viewed really nice.

"That would be nice. Thanks."

Left with nothing but odd silence between them Tony turns away with his bundle and carries Loki to the lift. The tickle of Loki's breath a mind numbing distraction the whole way.

* * *

"All I see is ankles." Tony laughs, watching Loki standing on shaking legs in front of the bed, one hand holding the California king's edge for support. His green eyes narrow in a mirthless frown that Tony can only smile at.

He's sure that Thor's seen that look a thousand times over, it just smacks of 'shut the fuck up'.

The black watch pants hang low on his hips and still come up well above the god of chaos's ankles. His bare chest still swathed in bandages and the he smells of betadine and antiseptic. In Tony's fine opinion he can use a good shower but Bruce cut that off quick. Apparently the good god of chaos isn't water proof at the moment.

Loki huffs softly, and sets himself back down on the edge of the bed with slow movements. Excepting the socks and cotton top that Tony tosses to him.

"Steve just buzzed, Soups coming up. Chicken noodle. Hope you like that. You seem like a tomato soup kind of guy to me but Banner said something about no red coloring in food for a while? I'm not even going to ask why." Tony babbles, watching Loki pull on the socks and struggle with the shirt. His bound wrists not bending right and must be causing him pain when he tries. The god hissing in a sharp breath before clutching his injured wrist to his chest, his free hand a white knuckled fist around the shirt. Strangling the life out of it.

"Can I?" Tony asks, holding out an empty hand and offering a smile that's sweet as cream.

Loki's eyes lift up slowly; his cheeks have a healthy color to them when he blushes like a high school girl. His lips twist to the side before holding the dark shirt out.

"When I first got the magnet in, I couldn't lift my arms above my head for days. I'm missing a healthy chunk of ribs and breastbone you know; the muscles needed to heal. It was a bitch. Not that I had fancy clothes to be changing into, Yin-" He stops, his mouth snapping shut with an audible click as he pulls the neck of the shirt over Loki's head.

The god emerging from the cloud of black perplexed, his green eyes soft and questioning, brows drawn and nearly meeting in the middle. Tony makes quick but careful work of helping Loki ease his arms though the shirt sleeves before backing away. The deity trying to rise back to his feet, still wearing such a perplexed expression.

Loki doesn't know. He can't know. Even if Barton had told Loki everything he knew about each of the team members, it was all information the archer had gotten from Shield files and in the context of Tony Stark; Shield files are largely incomplete.

It tastes like he's been sucking on a god damn battery as he realizes just how much and how easily he'd said everything to Loki.

Hissing in a breath, Loki steadies himself on his feet, Tony tensing to catch him if he face plants again like he did the first time he tried to stand and get dressed. Caught up in his own self absorbed fuck-mess or not, he still has to keep Loki safe.

Watching Loki sway on his feet he see's how tired the deity looks. So very fucking tired. A little ironic considering he slept the last few days away. "You want me to shut up, don't you; I really need to shut up."

Loki shakes his head slowly no, his hair falling down into his face as he comes around the bed. His throat works under the bandage and he croaks out a single syllable that could be 'no' or 'bo'… maybe it's not English. Maybe it's Norse for 'suck my cock.'

The deity grimaces and rubs his fingers to his tender neck, feeling the bandages there before letting out a gravely groan.

"Oh. " Tony scrubs his hands though his messed hair, pitching it in every direction as he catches their reflection in the darkened window.

Night time again, wow. Its odd how time hasn't been relevant since Loki dropped into his lap, like being around him puts Tony into a different dimension. One that can interact with the world but is separate; alienated by a fog that holds nothing but he and Loki and the toxic thoughts between them.

They both look like hell. Apt considering it's the flames of perdition that they both have been drug from.

Shifting through his scattered thoughts for a conversation he waves a hand to the bed that Loki's still leaning against on wobbly legs.

"You can take the bed. I'll crash on the couch. It's more comfortable than that damn hospital table and a lot better on my back than the chair. Fucking chair. I never want to sit on that chair again. I should have it burnt."

Loki arches a questioning eyebrow at him but Jarvis stops them from having to play charades. "Rogers is at the door, Sir."

Tony rubs his hands together and bounces on his heels, "Food! Let him in!"

He doesn't wait to see if Loki follows him, the god is a big boy and he's sure able to handle himself, Clint clearly an example of that.

Stroking his chin he pads barefoot across the pent house and finds Steve sitting a tray down on the stone bar. The super solder only looks up to him and bunches his jaw.

Shit. That's full on talk mode. People around here are just way too into sharing feelings. "Don't say it."

Confused Steve looks up from were he's fixing the steaming bowl of soup, making sure it's perfect. Fidgeting. "Why did you think we'd drug you?"

"Fuck, I said don't ask. It was a bad call. I thought- drop it okay. Tell Bruce I forgive him. Water under a duck and all that." He says, taking the warm bowl in his hands and looking away as the super solder reaches out and grabs Tony's wrist, Loki watching silent and pale at the mouth of the hall.

Swallowing the lump in his throat he glances to the hand holding onto his just to break away from Loki's stare. "Don't. Okay. Don't push me right now Steve."

After a pregnant moment the grip loosens and Rogers lets him take his hand back, cradling the bowl close and careful.

"Bruce is taking off. Clint too. He just got called in for a mission an hour ago." Rogers says, smoothing his hands over the marble bar. His cornflower blue eyes are down giving Tony no clue to what emotions are on his face as the overhead lights cast everything about the man in shadow.

"You?"

"Do you want me gone?" Rogers asks, Tony a little nauseas from the déjà vu, he's pretty sure his first opinion is still standing though.

"Not really. Loki might starve to death if I have to cook. There is plenty of space down in the lower floors. The extra rooms you guys have been in, I just request you give us space." He says shifting the warm bowl in his hands as it gets too hot.

Pepper would be proud of him for communicating like an adult.

Steve nods his head slowly. "I can respect that. More or less, I just need a place to stay. The apartment Shield set me up with is-"

"Lacking? I don't question that. Have a field day, stay out of my R and D." Tony says, glancing to Loki but he's gone, hopeful back to the room and not back into some supply closet to hide. "Go on Steve. Tell them- whatever you want too. Yeah." Ye says on an exhale. "Thanks for the chow."

Steve offers him a waning smile before turning away, disappearing behind the lifts doors the same time Tony takes for the hall.

The bed is empty of Loki and missing a pillow and duvet.

Breathing a sigh out his nose he sets the soup bowl down on the bedside table. "I'm going to find a bell for you. Like people get for cats so they know where they are." He says, catching sight of gray thick blanket on the other side of the bed and going around to it.

Loki doesn't react, doesn't move at all from where he's curled up in the corner of the room. Wedged tight into the space with his back to the protective barrier. His lax fingers still loosely curled around the silk lined duvet, his nose buried into the folds of it giving him more a look of a sleeping small child than a mass murdering alien.

Tony contemplates waking him up to eat the soup. The god is skin and bones and sustenance will probably help give him the energy he seems to be lacking but Tony's not that heartless. He can eat in the morning.

Backing up till his thighs bump into the bed he sits down, watching the sleeping deity. Tomorrow they can work on getting both their lives back in order, he's optimistic about it. It's not like the situation can get much worse than it already is.

"Jarvis, the lights please." He requests softly, pulling himself into the middle of the bed as the room plunges into darkness, only lit by the comforting glow of his arc and the city outside.

Even with how weary he is sleep doesn't come the moment he lays himself out like it did the last time he was in this bed. His mind a swim with theories of what kind of things will help Loki get his feet under him again.

Heal the body and the mind will follow?

Shit, he still wishes Yinsen was here. His soft voice offering guidance and instruction though everything. The man was more of a father in that cave than Howard ever was in all of Tony's life.

The tower is silent, devoid of the nightly creaks and groans of older buildings but even in the nothingness he doesn't hear Loki move till the bed dips.

Holding his breath till his chest aches he slowly turns his head on the pillow to see the black silhouette of Loki outlined by the stars out the window, the arc's blue glow offering the barest of details and making the god look more like an ethereal ghost. The duvet being used like a cloak only adds to the foreboding look.

Daring to take a breath he offers a weak smile that feels as fake as it probably looks, unsure if Loki can see it, the gods normally green eyes reflecting the arc blue in an entrancing way. "Hey."

At the sound of his voice Loki's eyebrows dip down, black slashes across his ghostly face. Eyes sharpening to look to him- actually look- like a moment before he was lost in a waking dream or trance. The deity takes in everything he can see in the dim glow of the arc with tactical precision.

Tony's pretty sure his life in in the balance here, what ever Loki is calculating is lost though as the god gives a full body shiver that knocks a gasp from his mouth.

"You're not well enough to contemplate murder again. Come, lay down. I pinkie promises not to tell anyone." Tony says, covering a jaw cracking yawn behind a fist and sitting up to scoot a bit to the side. Loki gives him a positively malicious look before laying down, curling up at Tony's side with a weary sigh.

In all the memories of his time in Afghanistan, he can find none when Yinsen let him climb into his cot like a scared small child…


	5. Chapter 5

I'd love to think not only Sound of Silence's new beta Krys for your wonderful work, but the entire frostiron/Avengers fandom, seriously. You guys pulled it together and moved me to tears and I'm getting together something big for you all soon to pay it foreword.  
Saying that. don't forget to follow my tumblr if you haven't; for writing related updates and all around frostiron goodness. Blank-ghost . tumblr . com

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Tony is pretty sure that if Loki put half the effort into taking over the world that he has into taking over the king sized bed, they'd have all been fucked. The barest brush of sock covered toes against his thigh, the tickle of breath along his flank. Loki not only takes over a bed like an invading force, he's a borderline cuddlier.

He remembers the thousands of times he's shared a bed with someone. Both male and female. Never once has one had such an odd impact in his life. It's a staggering fact that the count includes the likes of Pepper too.

Tony's also not missing out on the fact that if he messes this up, not only is there a chance that the whole world will be destroyed as consequence and the guarantee that Loki's life will be fucked beyond repair. Both set ill with his belly but the latter sets his heart on razor like Yinsen's death did. One teeter in the wrong direction and his whole emotional scope will be dissected beyond repair.

By four in the morning he can't take it anymore and sits up in bed, it's not like he's sleeping much anyways. He should be thankful its chase brushes of skin on his that's keeping him awake and not the dark horror of nightmares. Maybe he'll try harder to be appreciative after a few cups of coffee.

Scrubbing his hands over his face he looks down at the sleeping deity in the pale glow of his arc as the horizon fades from midnight to Persian indigo. Darkness creeping back to its hiding place as the sun slowly rising to another day.

He can remember the sun, bleaching the sky into a washed blue and baking the sand and rock till his whole world was a wash of bone white. Unforgiving and brining away all of his sins but he can recollect little else. His memories are becoming hazier from his time in Afghanistan, not clearer.

Breathing out a heavy breath he sets about picking apart what few memories he still has of Afghanistan. Sorting the dim from the lucid few and there are things that are still overly vivid despite the numerous growing holes. Mostly moments of his torture; the memories he'd most like to throw out are the ones that seem to be the most resilient to the test of time. And the most useless.

It's frustrating and driving Tony to an edge that he'd been balanced on for a long time now.

An edge he thrives on.

Maybe that's part of the reason he and Pepper didn't last, she saw what he is at his core and had the beautiful foresight to see that she can't be what he needs in life. She's all soft edges and puzzle pieces that fit together nicely once he set his mind to it. Everyone in his life has always been well fitting and easy.

Loki isn't. Loki is an ever changing, an equation whose numbers change every time he looks at it. Fractal and broken. He understands what it's like to stand on an edge. To be where Tony's been.

Squinting against the vivid sunlight as it crests the city skyline he lets out a soft swear that pings loud in the soundless bedroom.

Loki shifts in his sleep and Tony decides he can't sit still anymore. The glow of the sun painting the god's bare arms and long neck in gold between bandages and in the warm light he doesn't look pale anymore. He looks golden and radiant, god like.

Thor like.

His black wispy hair glowing with hints of auburn in the yellow glow, Tony wonders just how many people in his life have taken the time to notice things like that. That his hair is a combination of black so deep it's blue and auburn so rich it's like a sequoia in the rain. That his eyes are a toxic mixture of peridot green and steel.

Smoothing his fingers over the liquid golden skin drawn tight over the Loki's sinewy muscles he contemplates the fact that bandages need to be changed and Loki desperately needs a meal. The god only shifts again against his touch; closer, not further before drifting back into the deep clutches of sleep, the sigh that escapes between his thin lips is one of comfort and relief. The soft sound of an infant.

Breathing out a near chuckle hard enough it ruffles Loki's hair he wonders what the god of chaos was like before shit hit the fan for him. The barest of ideas starting to form the longer he's around the deity.

Strong and stubborn and watchful. Layers upon layers of beautiful perfect frustration.

"Sleep my conquer." he says, slipping from the bed and stretching his aching back.

He feels restless in his own skin, like its' stretched too tight over his bones and muscles and the quick shower he takes does nothing other than leave his skin red and hair damp and clean smelling of sandal wood. His sneakers squeak on the marbles as he walks into the main room of the penthouse and wandering over to the bank of glass windows he'd personally learned to respect.

A private smile tilts at his lips as he watches the city below him hunker down for another long hot day, even with how early it is in the morning. "You up Jarvis?"

"For you, always sir." and with his voice, the hard light screens project the day's news, weather forecast, Stark industries stock readings and a hundred other things that barrenly warrant his attention longer than a second even on the days he's really paying attention.

"Perfect." turning on heel he walks to the kitchenette just past the bar. "Have the kitchen make something with eggs, oh and doughnuts. Coffee. One of those fancy teas. Maybe some oatmeal."

"I'll put the order in sir, is there anything else you or your guest would like?" There's an inflection in the AI's voice that Tony can't quiet pinpoint.

"Yeah. Bring up all the files we have from Shield regarding Jane Foster's time spent with Thor."

"Would you like me to bring up the Rosen bridge research to go through again sir?"

Shaking his head he scoops up a tablet and flings himself onto a creamy white couch, the new leather protesting under his unforgiving weight. Noting the general lack of the ruined couch from when Thor first brought Loki to the tower. Steve or Clint must have taken care of it. He'll have to drop them a card or something. What does the mafia do in this kind of situation?

He has a hard time imagining a bunch of rats standing around passing out 'thanks for dumping that bloody couch' cards. They probably use fruit baskets… with arsenic. "Just all the information they gathered from her and her team on Thor himself."

"Are we searching for something sir?"

"Yeah, any information he might have given on his little brother."

"I assume you do not want to be shown information regarding the Scandinavian mysticism."

Tony makes a face as the files appear on his screen, wrinkling up his nose in disgust. "No. if there's nothing in her debriefing I'll just call her. I don't need that bullshit."

He's defiant to believe in the mysteries of the Norse stories. Elves and eight legged horses. It's all a little too hocus pocus for him. As a man of science he's far more willing to believe an alien race decided to have fun with medieval mankind. He just needs to stamp a big fat atheist on his forehead and move on with his day.

After an hour of searching and a relaxed breakfast Tony's sure that Jane is leaving things out that Colson, RIP his soul, was willing to look around. The debriefing notes are sketchy at best and leave him with the same amounts of information that he had started with. The nice new kink in his neck a reward for his efforts.

Dripping the tablet to the table he groans and pads barefoot across the marble floor, eyes lifting as he sees Loki standing bewildered and bedraggled in the hallway again. Sans socks?

"Hey. You're up."

The deity tips his head in a way that seems to suggest a 'so it seems' as poison green eyes take in everything around them in the daylight this time. Spending a heartbeat too long on Tony before glancing about the penthouse. His face isn't an unreadable mask, if anything it's an open book of blank confusion.

"I've got food here. The oatmeal's gone a little cold but I can pop it in the microwave for you. There's tea too, I guess that's what sick people drink."

Loki's nods his head softly, hair falling into his face before being brushed back behind his ears as the god takes slow careful steps towards the kitchenette. Following Tony, like he's caught up in his gravity and has no other choice but to tag along.

Pouring himself another coffee and setting the teabag into a steaming mug of water he glances over to see Loki positioning himself on a stool. "Your throat doing any better?"

Loki swallows a few times, frowning in defiance even as pain washes his eyes in tears that he blinks away fast. "No." the word is croaked out and lacking all the velvet and steel that Tony knows it's capable of.

"Well; Time heals all or so a cookie told me once." he says, handing over the warm mug and a little plastic bear full of honey. Watching Loki expressionlessly sniff the honey before pouring it into his tea.

The soothing bell chimes of the spoon against the porcelain dragging back some insane memory of his mother doing the same thing. Watching her and listening, the smell of honey and tea filling his mind with gentle laughter before it's gone.

"Oatmeal?" He questions over his own steaming cup of coffee. Trying not to stare so hard at the other man as he winces as the warm soothing liquid upsets his throat. Loki merely nods this time. Not even trying to talk, making no interaction other than what is requested of him. His spring grass green eyes down on the caramel colored liquid before him.

Almost as lost in thoughts as Tony is.

"I was thinking of calling Jane, Thor's little woman?" Loki's eyes rise up to his at the mention of his brother, dull emeralds flashing bright for a moment like stars between passing clouds and Tony smiles at the life. Anything from Loki at this point is better than nothing.

Tony remembers this stage. The blank, lost feel. Putty in the hands of his captors out of shock. Feeling so alone. He remembers the thoughts, the fear and sorrow that soaked into his bones. Part of him wants to pull Loki into a hug to protect him from everything and part of him, the rational part, realizes that helping him will be protecting him.

Teach a man to fish- or something like that.

He can feel Loki's eyes on him, waiting for him to continue as he takes the bowl of oatmeal to the microwave and jabs the buttons, glancing over his shoulder at the god. Loki's eyes are curious and on him but the way he's holding his mug, the tight curl of his hands holding the mug is self-defensive. Like he knows the next words out of Tony's mouth can break everything, especially when Thor is concerned.

Tony picks his own mug up, looking to Loki under his lashes as he sips. "Unless you want to save me the trouble that is."

Loki arches an eyebrow, his head tilting to the side. His hair sweeping across his face and over his shoulder in gentle wisps. He licks his lips and swallows a few times, his throat bobbing under the bandages. "How?"

"Tell me about yourself. Talk to me." he asks and Loki nearly jumps out of his skin as the microwave beeps merrily behind Tony's back.

Turning and giving Loki a moment to think as he gathers the now steaming bowl into his hands and passes it quickly to Loki, hissing in a breath as some sloshes onto his finger. "Shit! Hot. Careful." he grunts, sucking on his abused finger and digging a spoon from the utensils drawer.

When he looks back to Loki the man hasn't moved, like the steaming bowl isn't sitting in front of him. His green eyes are ice cold again and his thin lips are locked tight in a frown that's so bitter Tony actually takes a step back. In all honesty it's the closest he's come to seeing the god in all his previous glory and the reminder is a little chilling.

"No." Loki hisses at last, his ruined throat making the word even more venomous. Like the idea of removing his own head with a pair of toenail clippers is far more cheerful than speaking about himself.

Right. So not the answer he was looking for but it also doesn't surprise Tony. Resting his hip against the stone counter top he fishes a doughnut from the platter next to him and eats it in silence. The soft sounds of Loki's spoon scraping over the bowl occasionally and the hum of the air-conditioner already turning on at six in the morning the only two sounds in the penthouse.

Loki clears his throat in a pained sounding rasp, the sound drawing Tony's eyes up and across the space to him. "Why?" Loki asks his eyebrows knit together looking down at his spoon as he pushes the mushy dregs around the bowl instead of up at Tony.

"Look." Tony breaths out his nose and holds it, letting the momentary lack of oxygen clear his mind. Bottling every emotion he has up tight in his belly so that he can say what he must. "I know what you're fee-"

"Tony, there's some nice men here to see you." Roger's voice cuts though the private sound system, fake happy to the point that the inflection in his voice is almost comical.

Balking Tony's head snaps up to the ceiling out of habit. "Wait, what? Jarvis, what's going on?"

"The shipment of plutonium is here sir. It is the only thing that remained upon your schedule for the week that you cleared out. I do remind you sir that Ms. Pots has left a total of eighteen calls in wait for you." Jarvis fills in as Steve's face takes over one of the hard light screens across the room. He's huddled close to the camera like he's doing his best to block the view from whoever is in the room with him.

"Cap… that's great. Is it only Rhodey or should I send my girlfriend to the room for a rest?" He asks, leaning against the counter and hooking his thumb in the direction of Loki. Not missing out on the priceless looks of confusion from both deity and hero. Loki's brows lowering into a frown at the nickname and returning to his oatmeal.

He's off the hook for now but Tony makes a mental note to return to this conversation later. Privately.

Rhodey elbows Steve out of the way with a wide smile, his face taking up the screen even as captain sputters in the background. "Tony, when have you ever tried to hide a girl from m- oh?"

"Oh." Tony rolls his eyes, setting his mug on the counter with a soft clap of stone against glass and looking to Loki, winking to the god. "You're my girlfriend now, works yeah? Yeah. Thoughts so. You cuddle like one anyways." He steams right over Loki's hissed sound of protest and turns his attention back to James.

"Your early Christmas present is here." His friend announces as he holds up the metal case. The radioactive symbol a glaring sign on the front. A little to garnish for Tony's tastes but that's the US government for you.

"Well happy holidays to me, I've been getting gifts all week. Bring it up sweet cheeks. But you've got to leave your body guards down with the Cap. My girlfriend here isn't up for display."

"Yeh. That tends to cost extra."

"Now we both know I spare no expense. If you're done insulting my whores, getc'ya ass up here." He warns, wagging a finger at the screen and catching Rhodey's mock salute before closing the window with the swipe of his hand. Glancing to Loki who's pushing his oatmeal around the bowl, the sticky mess holding more complexion than the god.

Loki's quiet but his gears are turning full speed, the intelligence silent behind bright eyes. Processing the changing world around him at lightning speed. Tony feels like if he doesn't keep one step ahead he's going to end up an ant under a boot… a boot he's responsible for this time.

"Think you're up for a meet and greet or do you want to lay back down? It's just my friend Rhodey, we go way back and he's in no way involved with Shield or going to hurt you."

_Unlike those other people I once called friends… _but that doesn't need to be said.

Green eyes sharpen to broken shards of emerald glass as they meet with his. Loki tilting his head down in a nod, still managing to look down his nose at Tony when hurt and sitting. "I will meet." The whispered voice is still gravel rough but the royal edge isn't lost.

He's not even finished his coffee as the lift doors open and Rhodey walks out, wiggling the case in the air like a prize. He does an expressionless look to Loki and the god stiffens over his bowl of oatmeal but the two pay no mind to each other beyond that. Tony's okay with that for now. Anything not murder is golden to him at this moment.

"You've got some serious explaining to do Lucy." Rhodey mocks, dropping the case on the floor and greeting Tony with an open bear hug that he can't help melting into a little bit.

The last time the two saw each other was just a day after Pepper had broken things off between herself and Tony. Rhodey had shown up and the two of them spend a good twenty four hours in the land of alcohol induced hazes. Neither had felt the need to point out Tony's tears the whole time.

He's deeply glad the reasons are considerably better this time even with alien refugees.

"I do." He admits, clapping his hand on his friends back as they part. "I've got coffee. Want some?"

James smiles genuinely and comes around the kitchen bar to stand a few feet from Loki, eyeing the god with a nod. "Yeah, coffee sounds great. I was going to stop by Starbucks on my way from the base but the idea of bringing radioactive material into a public coffee shop is just a little wrong."

"You're just not living life right." Tony scuffs, seeing the two still eyeing each other, Loki pale as he tries to keep still. Like Rhodey is a fucking T-rex or something.

"James, this is my resident god of chaos and mischief. Loki." Loki arches an eyebrow at that and he can't help but simply shrug in response.

When Shield was whispering little lies about hallucinogen drugs Tony had given Rhodey an abridged version of the truth. Because what where super hero friends for if they couldn't sit about and brag from time to time.

"I think I remember you talking something about gods." Rhodey's eyes sharpen as he holds out his hand to Loki, the deity pulling his bowl close like a dog defending his food and promptly ignores the offered hand.

Tony watches the whole exchange on edge, not missing the fact that Loki keeps glancing to him. Seeming to stay relaxed only because Tony himself is. "Yeh. Well. Loki is here for a different reason this time."

"As in?"

"Personal." Tony grunts, pouring a second - third now? - Cup of coffee for himself and fixing a new one for the colonel. Loki seems thankful to have James's eyes off of him, his green eyes softening and he finally pushes the bowl away, clearly finished with his meager meal.

Eating like that isn't going to replace any of the weight the deity lost, already formulating a regiment of protean shakes in the back of his head. Yum.

He catches Loki's eyes and the god looks away, his shoulders sinking down tired as his hands curl back around the warm mug of tea. Giving the vibe of someone clinging to warmth in the debts of winter, not a record breaking heat wave.

"That Steve Rogers is a nice guy." Rhodey says, and Tony can't help but roll his eyes, making a face at his friend.

"Not you too."

"What?"

"Never mind." Tony waves him off, sipping at his coffee and watching Loki out of the corner of his eye as the god nonchalantly sips his own tea.

"You've got a containment center set up for that case, right Tony?" Rhodey asks to break what must be an odd pause in conversation, clasping his own mug and taking a sip. Smiling at the rich taste, nothing like the drudges they serve at the base. Tony knows he's choked enough of that crap down himself.

Pushing away from the counter Tony throws on a grin "yep!"-ing as he rubs his hands together like a kid. "It's just what the doctor ordered. Led lined and Jarvis protected. No one but me is touching it."

"About that…" Rhodey says, pushing his mug around with his palms on the counter and Loki looks to him. Tony almost chuckling at the Ping-Pong spectator the chaos god is pulling. "The brass is curious as to why you of all people wanted weapons grade plutonium."

"I'm not building nukes with it. I left that field, remember? The one eyed man behind the curtains cleared everything for me anyways."

"No weapons at all?" Rhodey asks, seeming to ignore the reminder of the fact that the Starks name doesn't appear on any weapons these days. Stubborn bastard. Rhodey and all of the US government is still waiting for the day Tony Stark comes crawling back to their weapons vault and as far as Tony's concerned they can keep waiting. For fucking ever.

He raises his hands in mock surrender. "No weapons. Nothing even with the suit. Just a very expensive, very cool toy."

"Your definition of toy disturbs me."

"You're just jealous." He says with a shrug of his shoulders, strutting across the penthouse to the suitcase. Hefting the case up. For some reason he'd expected it to feel powerful, like destruction wrapped in a few molecules.

Like touching Loki.

Instead it just feels like any other suitcase he's ever handled, disappointment sinking into his bones a little. "Come on; let's get this bitch up to where it belongs before someone ends up with a big green alter ego."

There's a clink of porcelain and the chiming sound of spilled water as Rhodey backs away from the counter his hands up. Loki making a mad scramble to get out of the way of the spilling tea, nearly crashing to the floor as Tony rushes across the room. Rhodey catching Loki by the shoulders to stop him from falling, who'd avoided the hot splash of tea by luck alone. The god a second later jerks himself out of the colonel's touch like it burns.

His breath is coming out in panicked gasps of air, and he twitches away subtly as Tony reaches his hand out, seeming to come to himself once more only as Tony smoothes his fingers though the greasy black locks. His eyes wide and scared, searching about for someone or something.

Bruce? Tony mentioned big and green a moment before Loki lost his shit… And doesn't that just feel like he's been punched in the gut by a tank.

Wrapping his fingers around the deity's neck and smoothing his thumb at the top of his spine. Feeling the cold clamminess of his skin.

"I think he just tripped." James says in the background and Tony nods numbly, Loki shaking against his touch.

"Yeah. That happens." Tony swallows, not saying that everything is okay but Loki seems to see it in his eyes because the shakes slow and the tension in his spine relaxes.

He's supposed to be caring for the ill man, and he's doing a piss poor job so far to the point. Swallowing the guilt and letting it ball in his belly and hopefully make him into a better man because at this point it's all he can do. Make himself better so that he can help Loki better.

So that he can fix the whole fucking world.

"You should go lay back down. I'll be back in a few hours." he says lowly, feeling Loki's soft breath tickle against the inside of his wrist, the puffs of air chilled enough that it causes goose bumps to raise on Tony's arm.

Loki seems to contemplate taking orders for a moment, turning it over behind green eyes before nodding softly. Removing himself from Tony's gentle touch and returning back down the hallway to the bedroom.

Scrubbing his hand though his messed hair Tony tries to do right for a moment. "Jarvis, keep an eye on him."

"Yes sir."

Snatching a few paper towels from a roll he cleans the mess on the floor and counter as James watches. Sloping the mess into a trash bin before striding across the room to were Rhodey is waiting by the elevator with his arms crossed over his blue dress shirt. Crooking an eyebrow his friend smiles.

"Wow."

Breathing out a tired sigh Tony snatches the suitcase up from when he'd dropped it and thumbs the button to call the elevator. "What?"

"I've never seen you care like that before. What's going on here?" James asks, grasping Tony's arm and meeting his eyes. "I take that back. I've seen that look in your eyes Tony, once. Only once."

"James, pleas-"

"When we picked you up in that des-"

"Stop." Tony chokes out, pulling himself away from his friend's loose hold as the lift doors open and walking into the elevator, jabbing the button to raise them up to the third R and D floor with more venom than needed. Taking a small amount of his frustration on the button much like he does in the lab when he gets mad.

On second thought it's been a long time since he's built something with the intent to blow it up.

Slipping though the already closing doors James stands next to Tony, a comforting touch free presence. A wall. A friend. What he's always been. "I'd like to know what's going on here."

Tony can't help but choke out a bitter laugh. "I'd like to know that too."

The pull of the lift stops and opens like a wide mouth into the darkness that makes up the third floor of Research and Development; storage.

Rhodey follows him into the room, the overhead lights coming alive with a low electrical hum, motion sensors tracking their movement and Jarvis watching from overhead fisheyes. The third floor of R and D is more or less one giant open space separated by semi sized containment boxes. Storage for his suits and parts, little things like live ammo and lasers. Unused bits and pieces that alone make up nothing but put together can destroy the world eighty times over.

His candy land.

"His brother dropped him off.-"

"You said he's adopted."

"Are you going to let me talk?" he sniffs, glancing over his shoulder at James as he smiles and holds up his hands in mock surrender, a chuckle leaving his mouth. "His adopted brother dropped him off, he was in bad shape. Worse than he is in now." he amends at Rhodey's' arched look. "I called up Bruce out of desperation. I thought I could trust him to help."

James breaths out a swearword as he ghosts his fingers over a steel table, following Tony though the cavernous space to a led lined containment box this size of a fridge that the suitcase fits into snug.

He'd started with the intent to give a short version of the fuckmess that his life has been over the last few days but everything ends up coming out. The emotions leaking though his voice without him caring to hold it back. All his messy bits on display for Rhodey, and like the good true friend the man is, he listens.

Leaning with his back against the led lined box Tony spends most of the time staring down at his hands. Picking his grease stained nails, worrying his knuckles. Avoiding eye contact because he's Tony Fucking Stark, he can solve any engineering problem set in front of him but he can't let his emotions out. Ever.

"I'm still not sure if Shield is going to come jumping from the rafters to put a bag over my head." he breaths out, turning back to the lock box just to give himself something to do.

"You're just trying to do right." James says from over his shoulder, his voice a sad sound in the space around them. Tony nods his head softly up and down a few times, running his blunt fingers over the cold metal handle of the containment box, wondering why he'd fucked up, why he didn't just call James to begin with.

"He seems like he's so knotted up inside that he doesn't know who he is any more. I- I know how that is. That feeling. It's the worst." He has to stop at that because the lump in his throat is making talking hard and he has to spend a moment just swallowing past it.

Rhodey crosses his arms over his chest and nods a little, looking down at the floor under his feet. "I have one problem."

"Congratulations. I've got a bunch." Tony barks out a raw laugh and waves a hand at James as the man pauses to chuckle darkly.

"You had a purpose."

The involuntary sound that escapes Tony is questioning and surprised at the same time. Looking up from where he's punching in a ten digit code to the containment box. "What?"

"When you were so fucked up… when you broke, you had a purpose. A goal. Even if you didn't know it then. I saw you Tony; it took you what? Ten days? A week before you were down in your basement building your suit. Giving you something to focus on. Directives to drive your hurt into?"

"Stop me if I'm wrong Tony, but what does he have?" James holds his hands out as though he's displaying the whole world, not just the spacious room, or even just Stark Tower. "Right now he has you."

Tony looks away, striding a few feet before turning back to pace back in James's direction, making short work in pacing the other direction a moment later.

"I threw myself head first into a personal war though."

"Let him." James's voice is quiet in the large room, shifting from one foot to another. He shrugs his shoulders as Tony looks at him, really really looks at his friend.

No matter how horrifying it is to think of letting Loki focus his energy into a cause like that, it's the truth. It's exactly what Tony did. It's exactly what Yinsen let him do.

Fuck.

Tony had the suit always, the only other constant in that cave than Yinsen was the blinding need to build, to fight back.

Stroking his bearded chin he stops his pacing.

"I can't give him a suit. I- not right now, not like this. He'd have to earn it." Tony leaves a dirty look at Rhodey who didn't quite earn the privilege of his own suit and the man has the audacity to give a sly smile.

"You said he's the son, adopted son, of a king. Raised as a king."

"Yeh. Why?" Tony asks, looking across the room to the nothingness coating the bomb proof walls. Trying to imagine how that must have been, growing up under a crown. Hell, he had a hard enough time growing up under Howard and a multi-million dollar company.

"He's a general. A soldier." Tony frowns at that, a poisonous look that has James holding his hands up in defiance. "Hear me out. In the old days, kings had to be tacticians; this guy clearly had the training. He invaded the earth and nearly won. He's got war smarts the likes the world hasn't seen since Khan or Rome." Rhodey says, tapping his own temple, his smile still in place. It isn't every day someone out thinks Tony Stark and Rhodey is just the kind of friend to rub it in a little.

Tony grits his teeth, not liking the idea at all. He has to remind himself that it's not about him. It's about Loki. What he'd want to do with himself.

Can the world handle two free agents?

"Okay." Tony says, excepting the kick in the ass that he can see what Rhodey is getting at.

"Bring him by the base in a few days, or even better, have Jarvis hooked up into the government database. It's not like you don't have the AI track everything anyways. Call me up when you do it. We can see just how much he enjoys war games."

"I'll think about it." Tony grunts, shaking his head no even as he says it. Rhodey knows Tony's personal opinion of all things warfare.

He itches to change the subject and they end up falling into an odd banter about the pros and cons of high intensity lasers on the suit. Jarvis's voice cutting them off as they get into outsourcing power supplies to backup arcs. A bullshit idea in Tony's opinion, the design flaws have Hammer written all over it.

"I feel the need to alert you sir that your guest's body temperature is dramatically dropping. He's also relocated himself to the bathroom."

"I've got to-"

"I'll come. You've got no clue what to do with hurt people Tony. That one time I got the flue in MIT, you brought me pie. Pie Tony." Rhodey says falling into step beside Tony.

The memory brings a cheeky grin to his face as he waits for the lift doors to open. "Because they didn't have any of those awesome little crepes they used to serve at the community dinner."

James shakes his head as he continues on and Tony makes a mental note to send the guy pie more often if it leaves this kind of mental impact on his life. "Not soup or Dayquil. Pie. Cherry."

He'd give anything for cherry pie when they come down the hall of his penthouse floor like and saunter into the master bathroom. Glass crunching under his boot covered feet, registering the sound with confusion before seeing the slate gray on the walls marking where the mirrors once were.

Loki's curled up around the toilet, shards of glass making him look like he's lying in a blanket of stars. Shaking and letting out this whining noise that makes Tony think of beached whales and sick babies.

"That's not." Rhodey takes a moment to swallow, steeling himself on the doorframe as he tries to process what Tony's seeing too. Because shit. "That's not normal."

"I don't care." Tony breaths out, taking a weary step into the room and Loki's eyes open slow and it reminds Tony of spilled blood on snow for some reason. Fire and the cosmoses all mixed into one bright red color.

The red washing over with tears and Tony doesn't know the whys or the how's all he knows is Loki is utterly lost at the moment.

He waves his hand slowly in front of Loki's face and those red eyes track the movement slowly before a slow shiver wracks down the gods body and he curls tighter up against were the toilet meets the floor. A vulnerable puddle of blue god and black cotton huddling into the corner as his tears slip to freeze on the tile floor.

"Turn the bath on warm. Hot." Tony says on a guess and Rhodey doesn't argue so it must not be too bad of an idea. Slowly coming around to Loki's side Tony sinks to the ground, his knees protesting with the movement, pushing glass out of the way carefully. He makes sure to reach out extra slow and sets his hand against Loki's, sucking in a shocked breath at the chill that meets him.

The ice cold feel of his skin seems to fit the sapphire color though. It's like touching winter and water. Ancient, beautiful and very alien.

"Warm bath Rhodey." He reminds his friend, seeing the other man out of his periphery simply standing slack jawed and watching Tony. Snapping into motion at the command and the rushing sound of warm water and steam fills the air.

Rhodey has the mindset to grab a few towels and lay them out on the floor as Tony prods the broken skin of Loki's knuckles, piecing together easily what happened to his mirrors. All he's missing is the ever important why.

"Come on baby blue. I've got to get you up." he murmurs softly as Loki lets him ease his arms under his shoulders and help him sit up. The god does what he can to help rise to his own feet, red eyes searching Tony's face as they come nearly nose to nose.

"What happened?" Tony asks softly as he slips his hand up to cup Loki's cold cheek. Smoothing the icy feeling tears away. "Tell me what happened?" he tries again.

Loki swallows a few times and then the words that spill out of his mouth. Rough and gritty, sound of the words testament to how fucked up his throat still is. It's not fucking English though. Not a damn word of it.

"Jarvis, translate."

"He is speaking no known langue sir."

Loki's rambles end just as fast as it's started. Giving a low whine of pain and pushing himself against Tony. The taller man hiding his face against the crook of Tony's neck. He'd be embarrassed if it was anyone else in the world but for Loki he simply wraps his arms around Loki's cold shoulders and holds tight. Looking over to Rhodey he finds his friend standing, his dark eyes grim as he watches. Not judging though.

"The water's ready." James says softly, shutting the tap off after checking the temperature, flicking his damp fingers off. Reaching out to help Tony with the bulk of Loki's weight but he shakes his head no. Loki already a trembling mess and something tells him right now that contact with another person would push him past an edge.

What that edge falls into Tony's not sure, and he doesn't want to find out.

He spends a second kicking his boots off, careful of the glass as Loki clings to him before stepping into the tub. Trying to think past the disgusting feeling of his clothes instantly soaking up the warm water he eases Loki down with him. The deity's spidery fingers curling into his shirt tight as the hot water comes in contact with his cold blue skin.

"Is he okay?" James asks, flipping the lid on the toilet and sitting himself down. His face drawn tight as he watches what's got to look like the craziest situation he's ever caught Tony in ever before. Tony's sure about that too.

"He's going to be fine." Tony assures not just Rhodey but himself aloud, sitting in the water and settling Loki between his legs, watching in open fascination as the blue color fades away as though washed off by the water. The pale complexion returning to the deity who's rested his cheek against Tony's chest. Green eyes pale and watching blankly as Rhodey kicks glass out of the way with his feet, seeming still in a daze.

Tony scoops up handfuls of steaming water and lets it run though his fingers onto Loki's body and he can already feel the man returning to a normal body temperature. Rubbing the deity's damp fingers between his palms to help get warmth back into them. Loki's body limp and impassive to Tony's ministrations.

He spends another few moments warming Loki in his arms before making use of the warm water to clean his hair. Soaping up the black locks and feeling like he's caring for a child. Knowing if Loki was more about in his head he'd be scuffing at being treated so and he can almost hear that snide velvet voice mocking him.

"There bandages anywhere in here?" Rhodey asks, standing to his feet and collecting towels without glass in them and setting them on the lip of the tub for Tony to use. The man's hands are shaking a little and Tony notices for the first time just how spooked he looks about all of this.

He didn't meet Loki the first time around, or Thor. He only got to hear the fun stories about portals and space whales. Even then, none of the stories Tony had told involved color changing, that's new to even Tony.

Carefully rinsing the soap from Loki's hair he nods, watching the god as he teeters on something close to slumber in the warm cocoon of water and Tony's arms. "Yeah. I've got some bandages in that cabinet. No. down." he directs, flicking water at Rhodey as the man misses his mark.

"I could bring U in here and he'd find it quicker." he grosses, Loki blinking slowly as he looks up to him. Seeming to slowly be coming to his senses finally. Light and color returning to his eyes like the sun parting though mist on a foggy morning.

"You can't threaten me with college kids though." James chuckles, finding the first aid kit tucked away under the sink and nowhere near were Tony was directing.

"Wana watch me." He grins, shifting Loki about and picking both himself and the soaked and warm deity up out of the water. Loki supporting himself and stepping out of the tub on his own. Wobbly sitting on the closed toilet before he can fall to the glass strew floor.

He makes quick work plucking the soaked clothes off of Loki's body and removing the soiled bandages. Between him and Rhodey they wrap the worst of the wounds that have been stitched together by Bruce and leave the others open to the air to heal. Smoothing Loki's wet black hair from his face with slow gentle movements, the deity's green eyes tired but sharp as they meet his.

For now Loki seems content with the pampering.

"You want to go lay back down?" Tony asks even though he's already pretty sure he knows what the answer is going to be. Not surprised at all at the lackadaisical shake of Loki's head. "Yeh. Thought so."

Glancing across the bathroom as Rhodey sweeps glass into the corner with the side of his shoe, he plucks his wet shirt up and over his head, letting the soaked material drop to the floor with a disgusting slap. Meeting his friend's eyes. "Want to hack the government warfare database?"


	6. Chapter 6

I'd love to think not only Sound of Silence's new beta Krys for your wonderful work, but the entire frostiron/Avengers fandom, seriously. this is the best fandom I've ever had the pleasure to be involved with.  
don't forget to follow my tumblr if you haven't; for writing related updates and all around frostiron goodness. Blank-ghost . tumblr . com

* * *

Hacking the United States Government Defense Database is child's play for Tony in a way that probably makes Rhodey happy that the man is on their side.

It more or less makes Tony annoyed that any idiot with half a mind can hack it, an uncomfortable itch that settles between his shoulder blades just where he can't, or won't, scratch.

Sitting down on the recessed floor he digs his bare toes into the white thick carpet and glances to Loki on the couch. The relaxed look on the deity's face is a mask, barely hanging on and spun glass fragile.

He'd remained damningly, stubbornly, silent after Tony'd offered up warm clothes and neither he nor Rhodey said a word as the man had made sure to drag out a thick blanket with him. Wrapping it about his thin frame before sitting posed in a sun soaked pocket of the couch.

Tony's own dry change of clothes comfortable compared to his soaked jeans and tee, his skin warmed by the fresh air blowing in though the open balcony door. The icy chill of Loki's pale indigo skin nothing more than a shivering memory on his skin.

Rhodey has done his best to stay comfortably relaxed but Tony's known his friend long enough to see the small signs that he is far more effected by this than he's let on. It's nice, after dealing with the other Avengers cold presence to Loki's situation, to finally have someone sympathetic.

Thank fuck for true friends.

The Stark tech touchpad in Loki's hands displays a diagram of a battlefield simulation just west of the Palestinian town that Tony first test-drove the IronMan suit in. Insurgents speculated positions are highlighted in red were the US troops is in green over the topographical satellite photo.

Tony tries not to think of any kind of personal reason that he picked that exact simulation. Letting his mind wander instead on how Loki chews on the inside of his lower lip, how elegant his spidery hands look moving over the screen. The bruises marking the ivory skin dulling to an ugly green and yellow, showing the slow but steady process of his healing like a colorful pie chart. Though the bruising and bandages do nothing to hide his inhuman splendor.

Loki's eyes narrow as he works the tablet.

He required little information on how to work the actually device, a unsettling if not pleasant surprise to Tony, meaning ether Asgard has more tech than Thor willingly had talked about, or Loki's spent more time on earth than his kneel stint. Because honestly, he didn't have time to play with Angry Birds in those three days.

"Jarvis can we get a hard light rendering of this up on the table?" He asks shifting foreword as the battle field appears in a tight network of intercrossing lines that shift with Tony's touch over his expensive glass coffee table.

Loki only makes a passing glance to the interface before returning his attention back down to the tablet as Tony rotates the view around a few times before picking an angle that he likes.

Rhodey lands at his side with a heavy breath, sucking back on the beer in his hand as he holds out a shining glass of scotch to him.

"You know how illegal most of this is, right?"

"And yet you're still sitting here. Drinking my beer." Tony points out, turning the tumbler over in his hands and watching the screen light up as Loki moves tanks and battlements like a one sided chess match. Only pausing for seconds to pull up side searches on the internet.

First time using the internet his ass… from what Tony can see from across the room the deity is link hopping as fast as pre-teens on twitter.

He's still unhappy with this whole plan but Loki seems a little more settled now that he has something to focus on to get his mind off of whatever kind of bullshit nightmares his mind had conjured up to turn into a walking ice cube.

Rhodey, as much as it pains Tony to admit it, was right.

His mind keeps returning to the chilled feel of his silk smooth skin under his hands in the tub. Like touching thousand year old ice locked in a glacier. Touching perfection. His hands squeezing tighter to the cool glass in reflex for a second before he forces himself to relax his grip.

Tony's only half paying attention to the battlefield but Rhodey is focused on what he's seeing, his dark eyes sharp. Loki breaths out a sigh and sets the tablet down at his side, vivid eyes reflecting the hot sun and making them the same color as sunlight filtering through spring green leaves on a tree. Warmth and childhood innocence, an ancient splendor all trapped in one color.

Rhodey sits up fast, his beer forgotten on the floor as he jumps to the coffee table. "You can't do that."

Loki looks away from the window, arching a delicate black eyebrow in mock questioning.

"What did he do?" Tony asks blinking back to awareness and looking to the hard light display, everything wiped clean like Loki had taken a cloth to the battlefield. Both rebel and US soldiers gone from the map. "What happened?"

Rhodey groans and rubs his palms to his eyes, digging the heels in, waving a hand though the hard light display, and flipping the view so Tony can see it better. "He nuked it."

Loki reclines back into the couch and blanket, the smirk on his face shows just enough teeth to be considered quite pleased with himself.

"Well, technically he can and did. It's just a simulation." Tony says, fighting a chuckle, standing to his feet with a stretch, walking to Loki's side and scooping the tablet up. The Wiki sight on the screen covering all the war and bloodshed that the Middle East has undergone in its long history of conflict isn't what he'd expected to see. His teasing smile sliding from his face with a chill.

Well fuck.

"You can't do that. You can't just destroy a problem area." He says and Loki's eyes, if at all possible, grow more defiant. Loki's jaw clenches and his thin lips pulling into a frown, clearly not liking what he's hearing, rising to his towering height, blanket and warm sun forgotten. His hands clenching and unclenching at his sides in anger.

Like a flip's been switched and all that pent up rage of a god is back full force for a second. Toning down only as he breaths out a long suffering sigh.

"Why?" Loki croaks out, his voice a train wreck of emotion and pain from speaking.

"It's not right. You can't punish a whole region of people for mistakes made by a few." Tony says softly, knowing it happens but that doesn't make it right by a long shot. Scrubbing his hands though his hair. He's not going to meet Loki's anger with anger, he knows it will only do him no good and most likely damage what bond they have. "No one deserves to be punished for crimes they didn't commit."

Loki stiffly backs away from him a stumbling step, Rhodey tensing to follow but Tony raises a hand stopping him, instead opting to watch Loki turn his head away. Looking narrow eyed at the city outside the window before finally turning back to Tony. His hair falling into his face ignored as Loki lets out a low hiss sounding familiarly like 'why' again and Tony feels his heart slip, ending in a bloody heap on the floor at the blank look of confusion and hurt on the gods face. He's just not understanding something that should have been taught to him as a small child, just what kind of moral system do they teach in Asgard anyways?

"Why?"

"It's not right. Just because someone is born somewhere that bad things happen, doesn't mean that they are inherently bad. It's a decision they have to make and then they are judged upon that." he says softly, trying to put beliefs into words.

He doesn't understand why Loki would be getting so damn upset over this. There's so much here that he's missing.

Loki turns away after a moment, not with a sob like a teenage girl fleeing to her room after a punishment but the purposeful stride of someone whose pride still keeps them standing even when they are broken. Tony and Rhodey watching as he walks quietly out to the deck he'd first arrived on. His tall silhouette a scarecrow in the brilliant blue summer sky.

"Fuck man." Rhodey voices exactly what Tony is feeling, turning and giving his friend a crooked half smile.

"I'm glad we agree."

Closing down the hard light screen with the palm of his hand he sits back down on the couch, heavy boned and heavier hearted. Watching Loki stand still in the warm summer air. He wishes he knew what was going through his head, wishes Loki would open up. Frustration gnawing on his bones and grinding against his nerves.

Rhodey joins his side and bumps his knee against his, Tony lifting his head to look over at his friend.

"I'm going to take off. Call me up next time you want to let him play around."

"You're still willing after that? It's a little obvious that he's still bent on destroying the world."

Rhodey shakes his head a little and offers a tired smile. "Naw. He's brilliant. The tactics he was using were above par. Just needs to work on the heart."

Rising to his feet James clasps Tony's shoulder in a warm palm before striding across the penthouse floor, dropping his empty on the bar as he passes. "Help him find his heart Tony. That's where he needs you."

"Right." Tony says, his throat tight as he looks to the glaring view outside, Loki leaning against the glass railway, wind pushing his hair in wild directions. The chaos god's shoulders are curled in, a standing representation of broken defeat carved in marble and left to weather the hardest times of his life alone.

He waits till Rhodey is gone, spending a moment picking up his half-finished scotch, the liquid burning as he swallows it down. Giving him the steel he needs to make it through this.

Walking out the glass doors, his bare feet instantly warming on top the sun baked balcony, coming to stand by Loki's side. The god's eyes are turned up, not watching the world move below them but instead locked somewhere in the blue ozone. Maybe he sees it different, sees it through the eyes of a mage or a wanderer; someone who's lived a thousand years and can see the stars and cosmoses and not just the atmosphere.

Or maybe Loki sees nothing through the tears slowly tracking down his temples and into his wind swept hair.

Tony stands with him under the baking summer sun as thunderclouds gather in the distance, waiting a long time as the sun warms his skin and his mind drifts like the passing clouds before the right words come to him. Slowly lowering his eyes and taking in the city, his city, below them.

"I know what it's like. At first I hated every one of them-" he breaths out, Loki turns no eye to him but the god's relaxed grip on the rail goes tight for a heartbeat. "When I first woke up in so much pain, later when they were torturing me. I wanted them all to burn and I was ready to do it. I wanted to with such a passion I could nearly taste there blood on my tongue."

Loki dips his head, narrowing his eyes against the glaring sunlight as he glances to Tony.

"The doctor that saved my life," he offers explanation with a tap to the arc without missing a beat "Yinsen, he was everything they weren't. For every wrong they did to me, he did a right in like turn. He could have been just like them, by all rights should have been, but he wasn't. He reminded me that it all boils down to choice and if I did what I wanted to, if I murdered and destroyed... I'd be just like them. Yeah. I'd be a different skin color and my upbringing is poles apart but inside I'd be just as bad as them. Just as evil.

"I had to make that choice. It was all on me." he says on a heavy sigh, rubbing his eyes and blocking out the sun for a moment. Feeling the hot breeze do nothing to cool the sweat rolling down his back.

When he drops his hand away he's shocked to see Loki staring at him, his tear washed menthol green eyes boring into his soul and heart. Splitting him open and leaving him wide and venerable without ever having to touch him.

Loki doesn't need to speak, because the regret of his previous actions are plain on his face. Tony doesn't know what all evil Loki's done in his life, although Thor says they've been great as of present. What Tony does know though is the chances are high that all Loki is thinking of is his wrong choices stacked on top of each other. Feeling the crushing weight of them pressing him down into a label of evil that just maybe wrongly placed.

Tony knows because he felt the same way for a while; a really long time after he stumbled out of that cave was spent feeling that. Feeling dirty and evil and lost with no way to change it.

And there was no way to change it till he made one.

Licking his lips he rubs his palms together slowly, trying to control the need to just break down and weep himself. There's a very big reason he keeps all of his life locked in a bottle of scotch.

"Even if the wrong choice is made, other chances rise up to make fresh choices. I don't call it redemption. That's a bullshit fairy tale in my opinion. Every time I hear someone say I'm trying to redeem myself I want to punch them.

"But a person can learn and adapt to make better choices in the future as they arise. Make enough good choices and maybe someday it will outweigh the bad you'd made. You can make up for it." He clears his throat a little, looking away from Loki back out to the city.

"How long?" the words almost get lost in the wind, pain soft and achingly emotional.

"How long?" Tony asks, running his hand over his bearded chin and narrowing his eyes a little. "That's a question I don't know the answer to. I guess I've just been living under the idea that you don't know. That's the point of it. You just keep doing good and evolving."

Loki doesn't look like he approves of the answer, looking away from Tony and back out to the city. Sweeping his hair from his face and keeping it there with his hand as he walks back into the penthouse. Leaving Tony alone on the balcony with his thoughts and a sore heart.

The humid weather bares no enjoyment to him so he returns to the cool cave of his penthouse after only a few moments, only a little surprised to see Loki curled back up on the couch with the touch pad in his hands. Tiredly flipping through the internet.

"Rhodey likes you; he said he's more than willing to let you try again with the warfare if you want. You just have to remember not to nuke the world again."

Loki arches an eyebrow and glances across the way before letting out an indifferent sniff and burrowing his nose into the blanket he's wrapped around himself like it's not over ninety eight degrees outside and sweat isn't making Tony's shirt stick to his chest.

* * *

Loki fell into a light sleep not long after that, the tablet in his hands and his knees up to his chest. Whatever distress fuelled energy had kept him going had run dry in the quiet warmth of the house.

Sitting quietly by his side and plucking the tablet from the man's limp hands Tony presses the back of his fingers against Loki's forehead, feeling for a fever and thankfully finding nothing but normal warmth. Or what Tony considers normal warmth. He's sure if something was dramatically wrong Jarvis would tell him.

Using the tablet to bring up his unchecked emails for the day and browsing through the itinerary for the next few days. Considering the shuffling Jarvis and Pepper did to clear his schedule for the first week, everything is crowded.

Part of him wants to take Loki to Malibu; his magical land of no work, but he knows that the business can only limp along so long without him. That if an emergency comes up with the Avengers, the tower is the best place for him. He hates the trapped feeling that comes with the responsibilities but there's nothing he can do about it.

Loki shifts, his green eyes groggy as he shifts onto his side, curling up closer against Tony's side once more. Breathing out a tight sounding huff before he settles himself with his head on Tony's thigh.

"Comfy?" He asks with a tight lipped grin, reaching down and fixing the blankets over Loki's shoulders as the deity gives a groan that sounds more like a no than a yes.

It isn't till after Loki's fallen back to sleep and Tony shoots Pepper an email that Tony has Jarvis pull up the surveillance videos from his bedroom. Muting the noise so that it doesn't wake the slumbering deity pressed against his side.

He watches the recordings twice over, each viewing bringing chills down his spine and prickling the fine hairs on the back of his neck like someone's walked on his grave. Setting his hand against the mound of blankets to feel the rise and fall of the chaos god's chest to remind himself that he's sleeping and still and not always so fucked up beyond belief as the hour's old image on the screen tosses and turns in a sea of silk sheets.

His skin washes over with the most incredible of azure colors as his lips part in a scream that even with the mute on Tony's mind supplies him with the sound of.

The deity doesn't so much wake up as reanimate like a zombie. Lurching from the bed in an unawares state and ambling to the bathroom.

The camera angle catches just the side of Loki's shoulder, the way the shirt slips down over his shoulder and the shift of fabric against lean hips. The not quite half view forcing Tony to focus on the small things. the curve of his hands as they fist, how the tendons stand out on his arms and the almost petite arrow points of markings that point down to his knuckles.

Loki leans in close to the mirrors of the bathroom for a moment before glass is shattering, another sound his mind has more than enough creativity to replicate as Loki breaks down on screen.

Peddling away from the mirrors and into the depth of the bathroom. Tony's sure if he cranks the volume all the way up though, he'd be able to catch the soft hiccup sounds of Loki's dry sobs.

Tony spends a second looking down at Loki's passive face as he sleeps, his eyelashes casting shadows on his incredible cheeks. Holding the tablet with one hand as he brushes a few loose strands of hair back behind Loki's ear. Trying to put his spiraling thoughts in order before returning to the tablet in hand.

Flicking though his private server he brings up a video he tends to try and forget exists a moment later the static filled video takes over the screen before the ten rings log appears.

He only watches for a few seconds, pausing and splitting the screen. Watching Loki's video again. When he's walking from the bed to the bathroom and his face is in the light of the hall. Pausing it there.

His eyes water from not blinking as he stares at the split screen of the paused videos.

Drawing in and out a shaking breath till he's nearly hyperventilating.

At least he's not thinking anymore. His spiraling thoughts coming to a sudden, neck snapping halt that only leaves one world lingering in his mind.

Fuck.

The looks are the same. The situation is totally different, but the looks on their faces are the same. Broken and lost and stubborn and dead and more alive than ever before all at the same fucking time and it makes Tony's stomach roll. Breathing deep breaths in and out his nose till the nausea passes.

"Turn it off Jarvis." he says around a mouthful of thick feeling air, his hands shaking to the point that he just lets the tablet drop down to the couch, not caring as it clatters off the edge to the floor. Leaning his head back against the back of the couch and covering his eyes with his free hand as his other latches tight to Loki's shoulder.

Breathing slow and deep till his heart is no longer beating against the arc socket wall and keeping his eyes closed tight to stop the tears burning there from escaping.

The radiator warmth of Loki at his side and the stress of what's already been too long of a day making him weary, opening his eyes and peeking through the cracks in his fingers he watches the sun sinking into the thunder clouds that hang over the city. The world glowing colors that make him think of mangos and tropical flowers before the gray and dark takes over.

Closing his eyes tight again.

He'd regretted the nap the second his mind had slipped into under thin veil of slumber.

_His mind is racing as the bitter cold peels his skin away burning strip by burning strip. Making his heart stumble and falter in his chest and squeezing his breath from his lungs. What few chase gasps escape in misty clouds of the air, hanging above him for a second before being torn away by the harsh wind that adds just another degree of cold. Teeth jarring and painful. _

_ Monsters loom above him, as dark and cold as the air and the cosmos filled sky. Their red eyes burning into his mind and germinating the most terrifying of nightmares. Their wicked sharp teeth pulling into unkind smiles as his back arches against the ice and rock beneath him. His lips have long ago lost the ability to hold back his pleas._

_ Struggling worthlessly as the monsters start up hymn, words echo from sharp toothed mouths. Unfamiliar and chanting. As ancient as the stars and just as horrifying as the monsters themselves. The lexis of mages long past, the power of the words makes the icy air ripple and dance and makes him scream in terror. _

_ A blue glow forming, square and perfect and it's not knowledge it's ice; the power is just as raw, just as jarring and it sings to his bones and blood. Collapsing in upon itself over again till it's nothing but the size of the palm of his hand. Hanging perfect and powerful in the air above him like a satellite, cold mist pouring from its four sides and magic, holy and powerful taints the air. _

_ 'Hold him still. Open his mouth." _

_ Words he recognizes jars the still echoing rhythm of the chants, the words themselves thick and dark. _

_ Monstrously large hands are grabbing him, his arms and legs pinned despite the icy cold manacles shackling him down, their hands burning and so so cold. Ripping screams of pain and terror as they pay no mind to open wounds and brittle bones. Squeezing his jaw and forcing his mouth painfully open even as saliva and copper tasting blood chokes him. Bubbling out to freeze against his skin._

_ Red eyes sharpen down onto him, hate seething like coals in the night as the cube is plucked from the air above him and is forced past his teeth. Liquid nitration and fire and pain screaming down his throat as the cube's rough edges scrape and jab, welling up blood as it's forced down into him till it's lodged. Choking and gagging and unable to breath past the shape, his empty stomach bringing up nothing but bile and he's sure here and now is how he's going to die. Cold and alone. And alone. So very alone. _

Tony wakes up as a strangled scream rips itself out of his heart and up though his mouth, choking and gagging on the nothings feeling that's still lodged in his now sore throat. Loki's hands pushing against him or the blankets or the air around him. The god's own scream is raw and grating to Tony and just as terrified as his own and the only thing Tony's sleep fucked brain can cough up is his own distressed wake up startled the slumbering deity.

"Jesus fuck." he rasps out, choking still as spittle and bile works its way up his throat. He swears he can still taste the cold and blood on his tongue and what a fucking way to wake up. Rubbing his hand against his throat as Loki shakes cold at his side.

"I'm sorry I scared you-" his words trip and stop as he turns his head, looking to Loki in the low light. The deity's shoulders shaking uncontrollably as barely contained sobs break past his lips. Crimson eyes, so much like those in his dreams, too much like those in his dreams in fact, rise up to meet him with a low choked moan.

Things click for Tony faster than any engineering problem ever has, than any computer code or scientific problem ever will.

Loki not only has done the deeds of a monster, he is his own monster.

He's not sure what happened, or how it happened, but that fucked to all hell dream wasn't Tony's. It was Loki's. Pure and simple and utterly horrifying. Of course Asgard does everything different, why not PTSD too.

The chills that chase themselves down Tony's spine have nothing to do with the cooled night air moving in through the still open door and everything to do with resolution.

"Oh. God." he breaths out, throat still rough from the dream and chest tight with emotions making each draw of breath a painful reminder of how fucked up this whole situation is.

Loki recoils, his brows dipping as he looks back down to his trembling blue hands, keeping them apart and away from his body, like he's afraid to touch himself. Everything about his posture says -I'm diseased, I'm sick, I'm contagious.

The choked cry breaks from the shaking god of chaos before Tony even realizes he's reached out to comfort him, his hands pausing just a hairs breath away from Loki's trembling shoulders.

Loki shakes his head no, a fast shake that sends his soft clean hair tumbling into his face where it gets caught up in his tears. Tony making a soft comforting sound before pressing forward despite Loki's protest, smoothing his palm against the broken deity's cheek.

Feeling his cool tears, just like anyone else's, even with the exterior, monsters aren't supposed to cry, gods aren't supposed to be afraid of themselves and have nightmares. People aren't supposed to torture their kin, or send their adopted sons to death. It still all happens though.

Loki's eyes flutter closed, more tears slipping past his thick black lashes, shaking like a leaf against Tony's palm.

"Okay, come here. Come here." he breathes out with a rough voice, slipping his hand down the back of Loki's neck and pulling. He'd expected some sort of fight but Loki is limp and noodle-like as Tony pulls him against his chest. Cold blue hands gripping his shirt tight in shaking weak hands as he hides his face against Tony's chest.

"Fuck." he groans out loud. Wrapping his arms around Loki's shoulders tight and burrowing his nose in Loki's soft hair. Trying to convey every forlorn comfort in the world that words can't though his body. Taking in the smell of coconut shampoo and an underlying hint of leather and something else. Cold spring morning, when the nights still cling to winters deathly chills and your breath fogs in the air before the earth remembers the heat of the sun for the day. A scent that is purely Loki.

As the man's shoulders shake softly and tears soak a damp patch into his shirt Tony absorbs everything without a word, obviously the god would be beyond horrified by his display of weakness. May even kill Tony just out of spite for this.

Even as Loki's breathing evens out and his shakes smooth down to trembles, turning his head slowly till his cheek is pressed against the hard humming surface of the arc. Bright red eyes staring into the endless night sky.

Tony spends time tracing the bumps of his spine though the borrowed shirt and counting the dips of his ribs, closing his eyes tight to squeeze out the horrors still lingering in his mind like a bad taste from the dream.

"Did you make me dream that?" he asks softly, his voice has to be heard as much as felt by Loki resting as he is so. Tony's fingers grabbing the edge of the discarded blanket and pulling it up over Loki's shoulders as the pale fads back into the blue, or is it covers it?

The red eyes, the chilled icy skin; that is the real Loki, isn't it?

Adopted indeed, unless Thor is hiding under a similar clothing of human appearances.

Loki shakes his head slowly, so long after Tony's asked that he has to spend a moment remembering what the question was.

Clearing his throat and trying to shake the lingering memory of whatever the fuck that was being shoved down his throat. Loki's throat he assumes.

"That was your memories, wasn't it? Those… people, that's where Odin sent you."

The nod accompanies a full body shiver that makes Tony realize just how pressed together they are laying on the couch. Loki all long cold limbs and lanky body. Cool breath stirs against his face as Loki rises up onto his shaking arms.

"What did they do to you? Wh-what was that?" he asks, all social boundaries and personal bubbles gone in that moment as he smooths his palm up and down the length of Loki's neck, over the bandages there, feeling his pulse flutter against his fingertips. It wasn't a knife that cut his throat; it was a fucking cube like the Tesseract.

Loki's once more green eyes drop before closing completely for a moment, and Tony understands what it's like to have emotional wounds feel so raw that there's no way to speek about it.

God how he understands.

Placing his index finger gently against Loki's thin lips he offers what he knows isn't his best smile, its weak and scared but his gut aches with its sincerity. Eyes dropping from green eyes to thin lips as he smooths the pad of his finger against them, soft as silk and warm compared to the frigidity the summer heat has disappeared under. Warmth that he wants to bask in and make all the cold go away forever and ever and ever…

"It's going to be okay now." he whispers, because he doesn't know what else to do as the deity dips closer and Tony rises up.

Raking his fingers back through Loki's soft clean hair and steadying him as he gives a tempted brush of his lips to the god's. Not holding, not forcing. Too much already has been forced on ether of them for them to want it.

It's small and chaste and somehow the most perfect thing Tony's ever done in his life.

Loki's eyes are wide and so fucking full of emotions it's spilling out again, liquid and warm tears as a barely there hint of a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. The tip of his nose brushing against Tony's upper lip and mustache of his goatee as he dips his head solemnly.

"Go back to sleep. I'll keep the dreams away." he promises, sure it's madness but it feels right, pushing Loki's shoulders down so that he'll settle once more against his chest.

Turning his head to the side he watches the storm clouds that blanket the night sky, stroking Loki's side and back as his breath evens out in a restful slumber.

He wishes Thor would come back, he has so many questions that Loki's not forthcoming about but at the same time, he'd rather wait an eternity for Loki to be ready to say it all himself. To not be broken.

God. For both of them not to be broken.


	7. Chapter 7

Colossal thanks to Krys and AidennQueen for being such amazing betas. Seriously.

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He's feeling rather accomplished with himself after a late start, well past ten in the morning.

Tony had done the job of keeping the nightmares away for Loki, soothing the god as he'd shift restlessly in his arms and only having to shake him awake once. He has a growing theory that the contact eases the god of chaos's sleep; it also makes Tony feel completely out of his depth with Loki's condition.

After coming back from Afghanistan he'd wanted no form of contact whatsoever, barely trusting Pepper at the time to touch him long enough to replace the arc.

To this day he's wary of touch, too much sends him into a fit, unable to ever get the feel of dirty hands grabbing him and pinning him down out of his mind.

Then again, he has never been the kind of person who needed physical contact, growing up in a home without it. Loki clearly hadn't though, and going by the abundant way Thor invades every personal bubble he can, it's obvious the house of Odin was full of loving hugs as the princes were growing.

After Loki had awakened, Tony had parted from him with much manly posturing and grunts, ambling into the bathroom for a quick shower and leaving Loki on his own for the time.

Neither mentioned the kiss, both pretending to forget about how right it had felt, Tony having to pretend extra hard to forget the warmth of Loki's lips. The mellow mint taste that was hinted at for a moment.

By the grace of a non-psychologically imbalanced god he'd actually managed to make a calorie-packed shake for them in substitute of a burnt breakfast; putting through a quick call to Rhodes as he drank down the green sludge. Rhodey had been more than happy to hear that Tony had survived the night alive and oddly pleased with learning that Loki might be back on a simulation as soon as Tony found the time.

He'd also managed to put through a call to a private shopper for clothes to be delivered for Loki; an ordeal that he'd rather never go through again.

Who knew there would be so many questions asked, like size and style preferences, all of which Loki answered with shrugs and confused looks.

It had ended well though, with Loki making out like a bandit with a plethora of black and green and leather. All at Tony's request because he had a feeling a little bit of familiarity might make the god feel better about his situation.

He'd also tackled a call from Pepper informing him of a video conference on his schedule for the day, and the video conference itself, a bullshit fest with the board of directors as they drilled him on new developments in products and what upcoming projects he had.

Shortly after the meeting ended though, things hit the fan a bit. Pepper called back to inform him of his snafu. Apparently some of the partnership were not overly pleased by the intergalactic war criminal watching NBC in the background; it just looked a little too domestic for some of their intolerant tastes.

There's a decently sized part of Tony that wishes Pepper would yell at him over the phone, instead she keeps her voice calm and business-like, never once breaking the Mr. Stark mantra as she informs him to please keep his open sexuality away from places where it can cause a backlash.

"It's not like that, Pepp. He's just a friend."

"I don't care if he's Santa Clause and you sit on his lap every night, Mr. Stark. There is potential for damage here if you don't mind your surroundings. The shareholders are already on edge over your actions as Iron Man."

Because it's okay to be a play-boy in the twenty-first century, but openly playing for both sides of the team is still a no no even if you save the world. Disgusted, he rakes his fingers though his hair for the millionth time, pretty sure he's going to be bald by the end of the month.

"Yeah. Right. Okay Pepp." he says with defeat, looking to Loki across the room. The god's muted the TV, subtitles running across the bottom as the daily stocks ticker tape below. Green eyes watch him more than the cheesy car insurance commercial.

"Don't forget you've got a three o'clock meeting scheduled with Walkner from Processing. I need you to look over the files that I emailed you today too, it's stuff from th-" Tony's mind fuzzes out, he's never handled the business end of this all well and the tone which Pepper speaks to him in has lost most of its warmth.

Looking across the room to Loki, the god simply watches him too, green eyes a mask of indifference. There's no way for the deity to know something cold and dead has settled in his chest, right were the arc should be. Reaching up and rubbing the device just to make sure it's still there and not replaced by something else. Something that hurts.

"Hey, Pep. I've got to go."

"Three o'clock, Mr. Stark."

"Can you say Tony, just for me? I used to be Tony once," he says, his voice small in the large penthouse and this does draw Loki's full attention to him, his brow drawn down into a frown that just can't be concern.

"Three o'clock, Mr. Stark," Pepper says before the call ends.

Tony stands with the phone still to his ear for a ridiculously long time, eyes looking out over the sweeping city. The boxy shapes of the skyscrapers digging into the rain clouds the day's weather had coughed up.

Pepper had been such a cornerstone in his life for so long that life with her gone is leaving him off kilter in ways he'd have never thought possible. The rudder to his ship gone and now he's left to be tossed about in the ocean of life. When he'd been in Afghanistan, he thought all comforts and needs had been burnt from him, but returning home to Pepper had proven that wrong. The woman simply was his life for far too long.

It's startling to realize that losing her may actually be too much for him.

The great Man of Iron brought down by a tiny little woman with more fire in her heart than anyone else in the world.

Letting his hand finally drop down, he pockets the phone, walking closer to the windows with a listless need to move. His head and heart filling up with ache, palms itching to grab a drink. The need to wash and drown himself in alcohol until his memories are a haze and it hurts a little less burns though his veins like acid.

"Mayhap we can visit your workshop?"

He lazily turns his head, blinking back a blur that's taken over the penthouse. Loki standing close to his side, having slipped up as silent as death. Dark head tilted just so, the look on the deity's face is one Tony can't decipher.

"What?" he asks, rubbing the back of his hand over his mouth. Mind slowly coming back up to speed after so abruptly shutting down because of Pepper. Rubbing the back of his neck with his hand and nodding, "Yeah… that's. Yeah. Fuck yeah. Let's go. Come on. Throw your fancy socks on; I don't want you getting a cold."

By the time Loki pulls on socks that he despises and dons Tony's MIT jacket, the god looks more prepared for the Klondike than a trip down three floors to R and D. Frowning down at his socks as he comes off the elevator.

"Don't give me that look, the socks are fabulous. Drag queens everywhere are incredibly jealous," Tony says, his sneakers squeaking as he leads Loki out of the elevator, to the cavernous area of his private research floor. It's Tony's favorite level of Stark tower and as close to home as it gets for him.

Loki gives a dark glare and looks back down at his sock covered feet; the neon green things are heinous and absolutely please Tony to no end.

He's not telling Loki but he'd requested the shopper bring by any others the kid could find for a thousand dollar tip tomorrow.

"Don't be such a spoilsport. I'm letting you wear that jacket," he says, wagging a finger at Loki before turning his attention away from the spoiled god. He claps his hands with enthusiasm. "Jarvis, wake up the kids for me will you?"

"It would be my pleasure, sir. It's good to see you back in the lab if I may say so."

Loki doesn't even arch an eyebrow as the lights turn on and the hard light displays flicker to life. Computers booting up in the background, humming together in huddles like women gathered to gossip.

Tony though can't help the tired smile that pulls at his mouth. This is home to him, when the outside world becomes too much and pushes him into darker places of mind, he knows here is the place to be.

This is where he needs to be after speaking to Pepper, somewhere he can put his life back together again.

Did Loki know that?

Glancing over his shoulder to Loki he realizes he's sharing his sanctuary with the god.

Tony Stark's private work room is full of renderings of the suit and reactors and weapons and all the little things that keep him from going insane. No one has been in here with him since Pepper left, and even she'd only trespass so much. It's his church and haven and the god seems to understand this as he refrains from judging what he sees, green eyes simply taking everything in with respect and maybe a little awe.

"How much of the tower did you explore when you were here last time?" he asks, pushing a rendering of the suit out of his way and approaching a table with a trio of computer monitors.

Loki gives a lazy shrug of his shoulders, reaching out to touch one of the hard light displays of a miniaturized rocket, plucking it from the air with all the expertise of someone who's handled the tech before. Not everyone can just walk up and touch it. Tony had to spend days teaching Pepper how to use the hard light displays when he'd first finalized the technology. Rhodey even longer.

Loki though, the bastard, scoops up the three dimensional display of an armor piercing casting before tossing it back into the air like he's handling real matter.

"Not long," the god finally gives and Tony winces at the wrecked sound. The echo pain in his throat nothing but a memory of their shared dream, still it makes him swallow a few times.

"Right, that was a busy day," Tony says, with what he hopes is a dull tone, glancing over at the Asgardian. "Trying to take over the world. Killing. That's all a lot of work."

Loki lets out an angry hiss of a sound and his bright eyes darken to a dangerous hunter green before looking down to the floor and his obnoxious sock-covered feet for a moment before he's casual once more.

Regret passing over his face for a second before being hidden away.

Regret over his actions, or not winning, Tony's not sure.

"I can't not ask," Tony says, pulling out his custom keyboard and looking to the screens. "You've got to have known this question was coming, so here it is; why did you try to take over my puny little rock of a planet?" he asks, letting the other man wander as he breaks into the US government's war database, pulling out his cell too and shooting Rhodes a text so he doesn't sound off any alarms in case his stint yesterday magically upped security overnight.

Loki clears his throat and shakes his head, giving a frustrated huff at the lack of his own voice as he comes to stand by Tony's side, looking down his nose at the computer.

"I hate Thor for loving this realm," Loki says lowly, swallowing a few times. Tony watches as Loki picks a stylus up from the table, smoothing his hand over a drafting mat. Drawing in the air with slow lazy movements. Runes or some Asgardian something that Tony has no clue of.

As long as it's not some summoning circle for the devil, Tony doesn't really care. He does flinch a little at the lack of past tense towards the big god of thunder though.

"I fell from Asgard, alone, unsure of who or what I am."

Am, not was. Tony sighs, pushing the keyboard away and turning his full attention to Loki, letting Jarvis take over the hacking as he watches the render take form. The symbols curving up and building into a tree like shape. Loki drops the pen, collapsing the tree into nothingness with an angry slam of his palm.

"It was a very long fall, full of very evil things all the while Thor's thoughts were on Midgard. Not me."

Tony arches an eyebrow at the whining tone to that comment; it reeks of baby brother issues. Then again, Tony never had a big brother to help him out of all his problems, always at his side, only to disappear when he needed him the most. To be knocked back from Thor's number one pedestal clearly has left a larger mark on Loki's subconscious than the god of chaos is willing to admit.

"Clearly you made friends along the way though," Tony says, trying to point out an obvious plus.

Loki shakes his head, digging his fingers into the drafting mat. "No." Pulling back from the table, Loki makes a cutting motion across his throat and strides away with purposeful steps.

A big fat 'conversation over' sign flashes in Tony's mind.

It's all kinds of fucked up, Tony wants to press him for more. What the fuck does he mean by admitting his allies were not quite so friendly? Did they simply use the young god's emotions for their gain? Who or what in the world is powerful enough to manipulate a god?

Making a mental note to further press Loki over these questions he returns to the hub of computers. He pulls up a simulation before looking to his cell and Rhodey's reply text.

"Rhodey's monitoring this from the base, other than that, go on. Have yourself some fun. Surf the net. Try not to buy a nuclear warhead from Russia though. I've got paperwork to fill out and another meeting to fuck up at three," he says, pocketing the cell and kneading his hands together in an effort to fend off the oncoming tension that normally accompanies S.I. work.

Loki lingers a moment across the room before coming to the computers, seating himself in the desk chair. Tapping an elegant finger to his thin lips Loki seems to think as he contemplates the screens. "Will you not test your worth as well? Even seasoned warriors still hone their moves outside the battlefield."

Loki rubs his fingers against his throat as Tony levels a look at the god, the deity half teasing as he smiles.

"I tend to fight differently if you haven't noticed. Not the kind of shit you've got to practice for."

Loki's teasing smile turns into a full blown grin that all but oozes 'oh I have.'

Tony only frowns a little, looking to the computers then across the room to the work desk that's hooked up to Stark Industries mainframe. The corner of his mouth twitching as he thinks about all that work. Bullshit things he hates to do and avoids like the zombie apocalypse.

Sucking on his lower lip for a second he nods. "Yeah. Fine. You're going to regret it though, princess. I play a shitload of AC and this is piss compared," he says with a smile, bouncing his eyebrows at the deity.

Loki looks momentarily confused, cultural differences putting a weird barrier between them for a second before seeming to get a hold on the conversation and smiling.

"A challenge?"

Tony tilts his head to the side and rubs his bare arms as pinpricks of chill jab down his spine at the look Loki is giving him. Under the bruises and bandages the god truly must be feeling better after a good night's sleep, because he's got that wicked grin back that he had when he'd greeted Tony the very first time.

One that promises as much sin as a snake with an apple.

The parallels are most chilling.

Tilting his chin up defiantly, Tony narrows his eyes. "Sure, why not. Jarvis, can I get the simulation on screen eight into a rendering right here," he says, gesturing to the wide space he's standing in, big enough to give him maneuverability considering he thinks much better on his feet. Something tells him that he's going to need to be on his guard.

"Can we alter the graphics and controls to something more…?" Tony wobbles his hand in an all defining vague gesture and Jarvis adjusts the graphics to something a little less wire frame and a little more CoD.

"Is this better, sir?"

"Perfect," he beams, only tweaking the controls for a second as Loki watches, altering them into something more like a touch based controller.

"So, does this count as a date?" Tony sends Loki a wink and the god barks out a choked sounding laugh that he covers up with a fist and cough.

Waving the deity closer, the lights dim down and the battle field lights up. Tony choking back a chuckle as Loki wheels the chair over, sock covered feet skidding on the cold floor. The god looks a little pale and tired in the dim lights but oddly pleased to be up and moving.

Tony spends more time watching Loki raise his hands and work the interface controls more than he watches the battlefield come to life. Only glancing down to survey the battlefield once he notices Loki is already attacking. The god moving hard and fast as Tony takes a moment to analyze from above.

Fucker.

The battle is over more or less before Tony can get his side moving into position. Ignoring his cell phone as it buzzes in his pocket, instead opting to frown at his dead virtual troops. "What the fuck Jarvis?"

"I believe he captured your flag, sir."

"And butchered my queen," he grouses, cleaning the simulation and leaving a look at Loki, whose chin is propped on his steepled fingers like a bad Bond villain; the deity looking up and offering a smile.

A real smile and holy shit, Tony realizes he likes that smile a lot. No wonder Thor fought so hard for his brother. He would go to battle just to receive a smile like that.

Clearing his head with a shake, he points an accusing finger at Loki, a smile of his own battling with his faked serious tone. "You're a prick. Best two out of three. Jarvis?"

"Keeping score, sir," Jarvis intones, a glorified scoreboard materializing above them. Loki looking up to his point with a cocky smile.

"That was beginners' luck, I have home screen advantage," Tony boasts. Loki rises to his feet and pushes the chair back, pulling his sleeves up before nodding to Tony, his face set in concentration.

Down to business then. Someone takes their gaming very seriously.

Jarvis has the balls to do a start count down this time and the players appear on field.

Round two goes much like round one, lasting only a few minutes and ending with widespread destruction on Tony's side.

Fuck.

"I prefer this," the deity says, gesturing to the game field, mostly to Tony's losing side somewhere near the end of game three.

"I bet you do. Mind controlling troops must be a bitch to keep up with."

Loki snorts back a laugh that sounds very unprincelike, covering a smile with the back of his hand that makes his eyes glow as green as spring.

Ducking his head, Tony returns to the scenario training.

He loses another five rounds, Jarvis breaking up Tony's sob of despair as he attempts to take the high ground only to end up putting himself directly into Loki's waiting troop's path. "Sir. Colonel James Rhodes has been trying to contact you."

"I know Jarv. Busy," he grunts, waving the AI off.

"He's insisting it's urgent, sir."

"Fine. Fine. Pause this simulation. I feel lucky. I'm winning." He's losing miserably, but Loki is still smiling. The god is slowly lowering himself back into the chair as Tony walks a few feet away and grabs his cell from his pocket.

"Yes mamma?" he says with a heaved sigh.

"Pepper called me; she said you missed some meeting. She sounded pretty pissed."

Glancing to the large faced clock on the wall, Tony blinks at the pass of time. What had started as a quick relief from his broken heart has turned into a full day excursion.

Rubbing his chest, he notes the lack of dull ache that usually lingers when he thinks of Pepper, not able to hide the surprise from his voice. "Hua. Looks like I did. I'll make it up to her later. Are you taking calls for her now?"

"No. I need to know what the fuck you are doing on the war database? I've got brass down here wanting to know what computer this simulation is being run against."

"It's not Jarvis."

"Tell me more," Rhodey says as Tony leans a hip against a low table and watches Loki flip through the control screen waiting for Tony to return and pretending to not be snooping in.

"Let's see, six foot four, amazing green eyes unless they're amazing red eyes."

There's a muffled sound like Rhodey is holding his hand up to the phone to block out some of the swear words before he calms himself. "You're shitting me."

Tony chuckles at the gasp of surprise from Rhodey, apparently Loki's been surprising some incredibly hard to impress people. "Nope." Tossing his phone to the table, he nods to Loki. "Jarvis, put this on speaker."

"I don't want you joking with me now, Tony. Some incredibly important people are incredibly interested. What would you think of bringing him down to a base?" James sounds stressed as his voice echoes though the workshop.

"How incredibly boring," Tony mimics dully, pointing a finger to Loki. "What do you say?"

Loki turns his head, eyes looking up to the ceiling; something everyone seems to do when addressing Jarvis's systems for the first few times. The act blessedly normal on someone who's so far been unfazed by Tony's entire tech.

The god's throat works a few times, choking down a swallow before giving out a rough little squeak of a sound that turns into a cough.

"Sorry. Loki says he's incredibly bored too," Tony says, striding across the room and fetching a clean cup for water. After filling it in the nearby utility sink he offers it to Loki, who's now doubled over with coughs.

Tony flinches from the rattling sound as Rhodey lets out a frustrated growl over the line. "Tony, I'm serious."

"I'm serious too. He's a bit of a war criminal in case you've forgotten; and as you know, I don't like sharing my stuff." Tony's tone is serious as he lets Loki take the cup with shaking hands, his eyes narrowing at the sight of blood slicked lips before it's licked away.

He ends up having to hold the cup steady as Loki drinks, free hand pushing back the god's hair as he feels for a fever. There's no abnormal heat but the dark shadows under the god's eyes are proof that the last few hours of activity have worn him out.

"I think you've had enough excitement for one day. Maybe we can go see if Rogers wants to cook us up some food? Let him know we're both alive that way," he mutters softly, setting the cup on the floor well away from any electronics. Loki's eyes drift shut tiredly for a moment before giving a slow nod.

Smoothing his thumb down the deity's strong jaw he feels the pulse beneath his fingers and appreciates the heady feel of life twitching beneath his touch for a moment. Loki's skin is as soft and smooth as silk as Tony moves, shifting his hand to brush the back of his knuckles gently over the bandages still over Loki's throat.

"We can fuck with blowing some more shit up after that if you're up to it," he says softly, knowing after a healthy warm meal the god is most likely going to pass out in exhaustion. But there's no need to point it out and wound what Tony's learning is an incredibly bristly pride. Loki nods quickly, clearing his throat again, lazing against Tony's touch, not away.

"Tony, are you even listening to me?"

"Nope. Sorry. Baby blue bird here needs to go to nest. Jarvis. End the simulation and shut down shop. Night, James."

"Tony, it's six in the afternoon, what the he-" The line goes dead, cut off by Jarvis with his impeccable timing.

Loki's eyes are nothing but slivers of silver green in the near darkness as the lab shuts down around them, his choppy breaths puffing against Tony's palm. Tony tries to pretend the shake of his fingers is from weariness on his own behalf as he ghosts his fingertips over the deity's thin lips. Touching ever so lightly before pulling his hand back and taking a step away.

"James is probably serious about all that shit. If you want to work for him, I won't stop you. It's your choice."

Loki's eyes open at that.

A choice.

A time to start doing right, but what is right in this situation?

Breathing out a little wheezed huff, Loki rises slowly to his feet until he's towering over Tony. He doesn't feel mortal or small though, simply close as Loki's hands settle on his shoulders, his thumbs sweeping up and down the sides of his neck as Tony had done just a moment ago for him. The feel of it prickling the short hairs down his body, the lab feeling small and warm and too enclosed suddenly; the air too thick to breathe.

He should be worried about what Loki is going to decide, he should be pissed at Rhodey for bringing it up, but all he can concentrate on is the sweeping feel of the deity's fingers against his pulse.

"Rhodey is good people. He'll be able to take care of you. Give you everything you need. Protect you from SHIELD," he whispers into the suffocating space, trembles starting to chase along his spine.

Loki's eyebrows slash down, his eyes showing so damn much emotion as his head gives a small shake no. The pink tip of his tongue sweeping out over his thin lips and Tony's pretty sure the dark laboratory around them has just caught on fire.

It could be, as far as Tony cares at this moment.

Space whales could invade, the world could end, the sun explode and all he'd care about is…

"I don't want the colonel. I much enjoy staying here," Loki whispers, his words measured and controlled as his hands slip down from Tony and he takes a step back. It takes everything Tony has not to break the distance between them and lay claim to that wicked mouth. Wondering if it would taste like mint and ice or like copper and war.

Breathing out a heavy swear, he grinds the heels of his hands into his eyes before daring to look at Loki again. Getting a rein on his thoughts with a few quick shaky breaths. "I enjoy having you around too."

He frowns a little at the tremble in his voice; clearing his throat and watching Loki take the chair back to the desk it was stolen from with tired movements.

"Vow to me one thing," Loki says, turning bright eyes to him in the darkness and Tony's belly all but turns to jelly, arching an eyebrow when the ability to form coherent words abandons him.

"No more shakes," Loki says, giving a chase smile, following Tony to the waiting open elevator doors.

"Not for now, no. If I drink another glass of that shit in the next five years it will be too soon," Tony grouses, waiting for the elevator to not bring them up to the penthouse but down to the community floors. Glancing down with a grin at Loki's green fuzzy socks.

He's in a daftly good mood as they walk down the empty hall that resembles more an apartment complex than a globally renowned beacon of clean energy and technology, Loki relaxed at his side with his hands stuffed into the fleece jacket's warm pockets.

"Hey Cap!" Tony grins at the blond head that comes poking out the open doorway down the hall. "Whatcha making for dinner?"

Rogers blinks, confused for a second, cornflower blue eyes darting from Loki to Tony before a smile takes over his face. "I wasn't sure yet."

"Great. Make 'not sure' for three then and we'll join you," Tony says, setting his hand on Loki's back and guiding him into the small, tastefully furnished apartment complex that Steve's taken over. A small army of suitcases towering in the corner of the room really the only sign that the soldier is living there now.

"Can I ask if you have a preference?"

"I like my beef mooing, if that's an option," Tony says, Loki shaking his head at his side, back tense against his hand. Tonys already regretting this little dinner outing; Rogers seems to be keeping himself relaxed and friendly but the god's gone cold and stiff under his touch.

Maybe it's too much, too soon for Loki and he should just take him back to the penthouse.

Looking to the deity his question dies in his mouth, Loki's looking to the large bay windows that flank the side of the apartment. The pregnant clouds hanging dark in the sky, a black sunset, the weather too thick to let the colors shine though. Fat flakes slowly drifting down outside the window in an insane display of weather, considering that only twenty-four hours ago the east coast was locked in a month long heat wave.

Tony tries to pick his jaw up from the floor, fingers flexing against Loki's back. "Oh… fuck."

"It's snowing," Loki breathes out, his wrecked voice soft and full of terror.

"Isn't it lovely?" Rogers beams, coming up behind them with a bright smile.

Tony's sure it's lovely, it's wonderful. It's karma and mother nature having a cup of tea and deciding to fuck with Tony Stark and Loki's life as much as they possibly can for shits and giggles.


	8. Chapter 8

Colossal thanks to Krys and AidennQueen for being such amazing betas. Seriously.

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Follow my Tumblr to get updates and previews of fics as well as general frostiron goodness.

Blank-ghost . Tumblr . com

Don't be afraid to drop prompts or questions in my ask box!

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"The nor'easter, now labeled as the worst storm to hit the east coast this century, what meteorologists are saying is a combination of the remnants of hurricane Andrews and unexplainable arctic winds from Canada. N.O.A.H. is researching further-"

The screen flickers black between channels with the precise tap of his finger.

"Though the storm is growing in mass it's moving incredibly slow, seeming to be taking strength sitting along the northeast seaboard. The mayor has opened all winter homeless shelters due to the temperatures dropping well below forty in the ten hours this storm has-"

The screen changes again as Tony jabs the remote aggressively, shoving a fistful of chips into his mouth as he glances to the bay of windows. Yet another news report covering the storm droning on and on in the back of his mind.

The storm outside looks like nothing on earth he's ever seen, the clouds themselves seem to have a poisonous air to them, twisting and mixing with aurora-like colors. The chill of it sinking into his bones and tickling the nerves on the back of his conscious that make him want to flee.

Apparently he's not the only one, news reports covering the evacuations of some areas already taking place. It all makes the hair on his body stand on end.

"Next in sports-" Turning the TV off, he tosses the remote to the good captain and looks back to the window. Loki defiantly stands still at the glass with his forehead pressed to the cold smooth surface as he trembles in a fear of his own.

Steve shifts at Tony's side, wiping his fingers on a napkin as he looks to the window with him. Tony kind of feels sorry for him. The man is trying to play host, and doing a good job; the meal of warm stew was just what he and Loki needed and the god had surprisingly taken out a full two servings on his own.

Tony's happy to see the appetite returning, another way that he's getting better, another improvement.

Fuck, he hopes this storm doesn't set them back, doesn't bring something out in Loki that the whole world is going to regret. Everyone but Tony Stark, because as he lets his eyes move down the lean s-curve of the god's body, he knows he's beyond regretting this now.

He'd become aware at some point last night on the couch that he's officially in this for more than just the need to help and heal.

The hungry way he catches Loki looking to him makes him pretty sure it's mutual.

Steve drops the remote to the coffee table with a strained sigh. "I don't think I've ever seen a storm like this before."

"I have." Tony grunts, dusting his hands on his slacks before getting to his feet.

The sky an angry boil of cold and death that the tower seems to be stabbing into, he keeps waiting for the clouds to tear open and spill out all the evil they're containing, more than just snow anyways.

It's all too fucking similar to the damn shared dream with Loki.

He may not believe in a god, or gods, but he's learned nothing in life is a happenstance.

Steve cocks his head to the side, watching Tony's reflection in the window. "Where?"

"None of your damn business, Cap." He grunts, and there it is again, the undeniable need to rip someone's throat out with his teeth. Meaning Loki's rattled, scared to the point of no return.

Fuck.

He needs to get him out of here. Away from the view, away from the state, preferably somewhere far, far away from any snow ever again.

The reflection of the big blond with slumping shoulders makes him feel like he's kicked a puppy, torn between knowing what is causing his emotional shifts now and the inability to stop them.

Scrubbing his hands over his face, he blinks a few times, breathing in deep through his nose in an attempt to collect himself. "It's been a long day, Cap."

"I know, Tony." Steve says, twisting the napkin in his hands, worrying the paper cloth into a knot.

Walking to the window next to Loki, he presses his fingertips against the planes, feeling the chill leaking though the glass; ice cold and life sapping. A shiver wracking down his body and drawing his muscles tight, he sucks in a deep breath.

They need to get away from this. Far away.

"Jarvis, send a message to Happy; tell him to schedule us the next flight out to California."

"The airport is closed, sir."

"Which one?" he snaps, fast and angry and he feels Loki twitch against his side.

"All of them, sir. The mayor is calling a state of emergency. It would be unadvisable to leave the tower. The city may need the Avengers to assemble to assist in evacuation."

Fists balling at his sides, he lets out a hard breath that clouds the glass in front of him for a moment. "Fury."

"The message just arrived, sir. He seems to be assembling the team."

"What a fucking mess. Tell him he can suck my balls if he thinks he's going to be able to force me to stay here."

"I'll make sure to pass the word along, sir."

Blinking, he allows himself to smile. "Oh. Good." Tilting his head on the glass, he looks to Loki, silver green eyes glazed as he watches the snow whipping by in flurries of white destruction.

The god doesn't look lost or scared, he looks completely vacant and that almost scares Tony more than any other emotion he's ever seen.

"You ever been to Malibu?"

Arching an eyebrow, Loki turns his head slowly to look at him, blinking himself out of whatever kind of internal monologue he'd been in. Shaking his head slowly no.

"It's warm, lots of bikini clad babes, the curvy kind that always seem so flexible. Promise no snow. Where there is a will, there is a way. I bet I can buy us a ticket out of here. I am Tony Stark after all." He flashes a plastic smile to seal the deal, the same kind of grin that could get him laid or land a big contract with anyone else, Loki just looks unimpressed.

Loki's eyes slide closed as Steve across the room sputters in protest, his words of advice falling on deaf ears. Tony doesn't give a shit what Fury wants.

The deity presses his cheek to the glass as he breathes out quiet calm breaths that break and tremble after a moment. Shaking his head no slowly, when he opens his eyes Tony's sure something's changed. There's a hard set to his jaw there, a stubborn will to survive behind a wash of barely held back tears. "We stay."

Arching an eyebrow, he can't help but press curiously. Because shit. He wants to get the fuck away from this storm and he's not even the one who was tortured amongst all that ice and snow. "Here? When you can leave this and lounge on a beach?"

"Home screen advantage," the deity says, clasping a hand to Tony's shoulder before turning away.

Tony stands stone statue still for a heartbeat, watching Loki pull the old as fuck MIT jacket up over his shoulder. The god of chaos nods his head calmly to Steve as he passes him before walking out of the apartment completely, strutting away like he owns the place.

Steve's looking down at his clasped hands, worrying his knuckles and smoothing back his hair. He's saying a whole lot of nothing but his opinion of the situation is clear in his body language. It's lacking a quality of disappointment that Tony would have expected from the older man.

Tony waits until he doesn't feel like putting his fist though a wall anymore before throwing himself onto the chair by the windows. Turning his head away from the horrifying snow that's burning a warpath of terror into the chaos god somewhere wandering in the tower.

Loki's words ping-pong between his ears in an unsavory way.

Are they really coming under attack? Is this some precursor for a frozen hell on earth?

Space yetis?

Instead of rallying the troops, he rubs his palms over his thighs and stops himself from chasing after Loki.

"I can send you with some of those left overs." Rogers says softly, standing and walking to the kitchenette, already fussing with Tupperware before Tony can even open his mouth.

"Thanks. That's nice."

"He's looking better."

Tony nods, rubbing his hand to his mouth. "Yeah. It's amazing what some good rest and protein shakes can do for a god. Shit loads more than Bruce ever did."

"He seems to trust you a lot…" There's an odd pause but Tony doesn't take the bait and look up, staring down at the plush powder gray carpet instead. "And you him." Steve says from much closer now, his shoes filling Tony's vision till he looks up to Rogers holding out a Tupperware container full of enough food for both him and Loki.

Steve's cornflower blue eyes are completely without worry and it takes Tony a moment to realize he hasn't caught the impact behind Loki's words. Death could be riding down upon them and no one but Loki and he know it.

He wants that ignorance to stay. Feeling like hiding his head in the sand himself, maybe if he pretends there is no problem, then it will go away.

The whole proverbial and physical storm will blow over.

Breathing out a sigh, he offers up a weak smile in return, sticking his head further into the sand, "Never thought you'd see the day when the great Tony Stark learned to trust?"

Tilting his head to the door, Steve smiles even wider. "Bet it's the same for him too. I'm really happy for both of you."

Tony snags the container from the other man's hands as he stands. "Great. Glad I've got your approval to date him, mom." He huffs jokingly, grabbing his jacket from the back of the chair.

Steve looks twelve shades of confused, his ears a non-becoming hint of pink. "Don't take this wrong, but you're a weird ass guy."

Barking out a laugh, he wiggles the Tupperware at him. "And you're cramping my style."

It's not in the warmth of the penthouse that Tony finds Loki again; he'd searched there first and dropped off the leftovers in the fridge before starting his trek, working his way slowly down the tower in search.

He could ask Jarvis, but something about walking the familiar perimeter grounds him. It's a nice reminder that everything is still in its place and nothing bad has happened yet.

Maybe he shouldn't listen to Loki, maybe there is no attack coming.

It had taken him months to feel safe again after Afghanistan; the wrong combination of sights and sounds made him panic. Didn't mean the Ten Rings were coming back for him again just because he'd walked into a dark small room.

Doesn't mean big blue aliens are coming for them all just because Loki's nosed up with an out of season nor'easter.

Gut instincts are gut instincts though, and it's not just Loki saying something is wrong. Humans as a species seem to be rattled by this; maybe Loki, as a different species, is even more in tune with nature.

The elephant fleeing the tsunami… or in this case, not.

It's not until the world is bathed in blue and surrounded by the electric hum of the arc reactor that Tony finally finds Loki. The thrum of the eighteen square foot doughnut of hot plasma matches the hum in his chest, bringing memories of bone deep ache and death via poisoning to the forefront for a second before he tamps them down.

"I didn't really design the basement as anything but a housing for her, so it's not the most cozy room in the house." It also has no windows and is five stories under New York, but he doesn't point that out.

"It shows." Loki says softly, not removing his eyes from watching the electric blue sparks whipping just a foot of glass from his face. "It is beautiful."

"It's a couple thousand pounds of metal and poison." He shrugs nonchalantly, tapping his finger to his chest. "Matches the original model for this."

"It has a magic to it." Loki breathes, reaching out and resting his bare hand against the glass. Most people avoid touching it, even the big old one Howard built back in the LA campus. Some people had an insane fear of electrocution even though the odds are astronomical, some people were just unnerved by the low frequency hum that rattled the glass at all times.

Loki soothes his hand over it like he's stroking a lover. "Much magic."

"Really?" He asks, although he's not overly surprised at the same time. Not now.

How many years did good old dad have the Tesseract in his keep before he'd handed it over to SHIELD? The same dear old dad that was so secretive about a new element that he'd hidden it from everyone in the world.

The same Tesseract that promises its keepers ultimate knowledge.

It makes him wonder what kind of knowledge it had given the god before him and how much of that knowledge had helped break him.

Striding up to Loki, he smooths his hands over the steel rail around the containment glass, warm from the kinetic energy of the reactor. Soothing compared to the chill the window and the storm had given.

"Are we going under attack?" he asks and why the hell not get the elephant in the room over and done with. Watching Loki's hand still against the glass, spare sparks gathering against his fingers like a cheap Plasma globe bought in the mall. Tony reaches up slowly, pressing his hand on top of the god's, lacing their fingers together against the warm glass. Loki turns his head to look at him but makes no move to pull his hand away. The heavenly glow sparking between their spread fingers like lightning caught in a bottle.

Loki's throat works as he swallows, green eyes returning to watching the arc. "The snow is not of Midgard."

Clearing his throat, Loki says nothing beyond that. A horrifying fact in itself. Verifying the unearthly origins of the storm.

"How do you know that?" he asks, watching as Loki turns his hand slowly, threading his fingers between Tony's so they're palm to palm.

Loki's hands are warm and strong despite the birdlike elegance to them, a pale contrast to Tony's blunt and grease-stained fingers.

He almost doesn't catch it as Loki shakes his head no, far more focused on how he's pulling their joined hands from the containment shield. Tony tenses like a bowstring as Loki raises their hands up to his lips. The silk brush of his thin lips against his swollen knuckles draws an uncontrollable sound from his throat.

"I do not fear-" Loki punctuates his words by placing another kiss on the back of Tony's hand, eyes a vortex of green and silver and arc blue. "-the past-" Loki turns his hand over, soft lips worshipping the tender skin of his exposed wrist with touches as fragile as butterfly wings. "-but the future."

"It's looking quite grand right now to me." Tony says with a dry chuckle that sounds whipcrack loud in the basement, every nerve ending coming alive as the god's warm lips curve into a smile against his skin.

His fingers twitch against Loki's jaw and the god's eyes dart up to him, tongue indecently lapping at his throbbing pulse once more. "We're all going to die tomorrow, aren't we?"

"Likely." Loki admits, letting Tony's hand go finally and his whole body feels the loss of contact.

Tony nods his head for a second dumbly, fisting his empty hand in the air before reaching out and grabbing Loki's head with both hands, pulling him the distance down between them until their lips meet.

There's no force at all to the kiss, Loki's eyes dropping half closed as he tips his head, giving as much as he gets from Tony.

It's not messy or rough, the mint and sweet icy taste to Loki's lips is just what he'd remembered, what he'd dreamed they would be. Loki's hands fumble against his chest and for a heart-stopping moment Tony's sure he's going to push him away before long fingers dig into his shirt and pull them flush together.

It ends before it's started and like that moment on the couch, they spend more time breathing each other's breath then actually touching. The world fading away to background noise when Loki swipes his wet tongue over his lower lip.

"I'm okay with dying tomorrow." Tony whispers faintly, stroking his fingers back through the inky strands that slip through his fingers like cold water. Tilting his head and kissing the god of chaos again, pushing his tongue in to taste that sweet spice as the wiry body against his shivers.

It's not the same brief glancing kiss this time but something full-bodied, where he feels his heart rate kick against the arc in his chest and mimic Loki's pulse against his thumbs as his hands slip down to hold that elegant neck. Claiming Loki's mouth with a moist sweep of his tongue he nearly caves as the taller god pushes back, whatever moment of questioning insecurity gone. Burned away.

Warm fingertips stroking his sides, circling and kneading where they've slipped under his shirt before he'd even noticed it. Fanning the fire in his blood with slow demanding touches.

Breaking away, he draws out a panting 'fuck' that's nearly drowned out by the hammer beat of his heart. Loki's lips make up for his absence by sucking against his neck. Nipping just hard enough to make him jump before soothing over the wound in a warm twist.

His body feels hotter than the plasma in the arc, hotter than a thousand burning suns as molten lava pools in his belly.

A deadly desire.

It's a hundred ways wrong and he knows he's stepped far beyond helping Loki get better but he just can't draw a care from his chest as he pulls Loki back to his mouth by the chin.

He pushes the deity back against the glass containment wall of the arc, lighting him up like an industrial god to be worshipped. His black hair finger-mussed and lips fuck-me-red; open slightly for each heaved breath as his palms slide down further to grab at Tony's ass. Something he'd never thought he'd appreciate till now.

"I want to forget, Anthony."

Tony's concentration and dick snap to attention at the sound of his birth name being panted by those lips. Caging Loki with his body, he nods his head sharply, circling the god's glossy lips with his fingertip. "I can do that."

Loki's eyes show their approval as much as desire, poison green nothing but a vivid ring around his ocean wide pupils.

He gives Loki's hips a squeeze, a silent 'I'll get to this later' before sliding his hands up his sides, making him raise his arms till he's one long line against the blue electric glow. It's easy then to work his hands under his jacket and Loki's shirt, bringing them up slowly and revealing inch after inch of moon pale skin.

He's making a god shiver.

His brain seizes on that thought as he sweeps his hands up, drawing the shirt and jacket along as he smooths his palms up the leanness of Loki's flat abdomen. He can still count Loki's ribs with his fingertips, malnutrition doing nothing but making the god more like a lean bear in winter. Something to be respected and feared.

It's done nothing to take away the beauty. He dips down to kiss gently above the dimple of his bellybutton, laving his tongue up. Nipping and tasting along every new inch he discovers. Pausing at the hollow beneath the god's ribs when Loki's breath hitches and releases in a moan. Biting into the tender flesh just to hear that sound again.

He's uncomfortably hard in his jeans, resisting the urge to just grind himself against the god to slake the need. He's here to worship this broken perfect god and worship he does and for once in his life he's willing to deal with a little ache to make someone else feel good.

Pulling the jacket the rest of the way off him, he drops it to the floor at his feet, taking in the feast before him. Even with the jagged black stitches and thinness, Loki's a thing of perfection. Muscles rippling beneath the surface as the god reaches out, stretching his palm out over the glowing center in Tony chest.

The one fucking thing he never lets anyone near; and even here and now he jumps at the blatant contact, a fear and lust born groan ripping from his throat as Loki taps his finger to the glowing center in his chest.

Loki's not going after it with a scepter this time though, not as his palms cup the light and watch the glow with a reverence, lust-blown eyes looking up to meet his.

"I want to see it." Loki hums the demand, his voice as sensual as his body.

It's a promise, not a demand though. Trust is a two way road. For this to work they've both got to be willing to be at their most vulnerable around each other and to this point, Loki's given and given with Tony just taking.

Swallowing thickly, he nods his head and steps back far enough to have the room, pulling his own shirt up and off to join Loki's at their feet, glancing down to where he can see the metal casting and glowing arc. "Not as pretty as you'd think."

"It is flawless." Loki says, casting out doubt and self-consciousness with a kingly air, his rough voice a few octaves closer to velvet as Tony moves to close the inches between them so the god's fingers can move over the casting again.

The scar tissue isn't sensitive to touch and contact with the arc itself is mostly unnoticeable unless it's tapped on and then he can feel the vibrations deep in his chest like something's causing a mini earthquake down his spine. It's almost disappointing that he can't feel Loki's fingers as the god circles the protective plating and traces the triangle's outline before looking back up into Tony's eyes.

His breath is stolen not from the touch of Loki's palms spread out over his chest, leaving warm tingles in their wake, but from the emotions in the god's darkened eyes. A cosmic mixture of lust, need and want, the desire to be something for someone, for a home and a place even if Loki doesn't openly confess it; it's written on his soul.

Arching into him, Tony takes his mouth again, burning away whatever is causing the hurt with all of his being.

God, he knows if he can fix this, he can fix himself.

The hollowness inside of him mirroring Loki's.

Loki's mirroring his.

He rocks against him in an unconscious rhythm that brings out the most incredible sounds from the god for him to devour. Long fingers gripping his jean covered hips and drawing a moan up from deep in his chest as the god arches to answer his thrusting hips as he's backed into the arc containment glass again.

Breaking away from his lips, he draws in choppy urgent gasps, feathering kisses down the naked flesh of the Asgardian's throat. Forcing a ragged gasp from the deity with a bite, Tony brings his arm around his narrow waist, forcing Loki closer to the arc and up onto the railing.

The position is godawful and Loki'll end up pulling a muscle but the angle is perfect as Tony rocks his aching groin into Loki's, wedging his hips into the cradle of the god's hips. Leather and denim clashing, causing delicious friction where they both need it.

Everything that is prim and royal about Loki falls away in layers, melting down to nothingness till the barest soul of the god is on display for him in the blue electric glow of Tony's world.

He's stunning.

The long neck arches and sharp fingers clench at his shoulders as long powerful legs wrap around Tony's waist, forcing them closer together, like Loki's trying to mold them into one being as he pants into Tony's hair.

Tony's cock is aching for freedom in his jeans, demanding more touch and more Loki.

So much fucking more Loki. He wants to drown in him, crawl up inside his thin chest and die wrapped around the god's heart.

There's a low frequency vibration coming from the reactor as he presses Loki's spine into it, fiddling with the button snap at the top of the god's leathers. No matter how great they make his ass look, there is a point of no return with clothing when one has to concentrate this hard during a time like this.

He's going to fucking burn these pants and force – beg - Loki to wear nothing for the rest of his long life.

Button and zipper finally give way after a few low muttered curses from Tony and a rasped chuckle from the god,the sound both heard and felt with his mouth pressed against that elegant throat, tasting the tender skin just below the god's left ear.

Slipping his hand down Loki's flat abdomen and into the now loosened pants, he nips a sore spot onto the god's shoulder, feeling as much as hearing Loki's choked out sob when he grips his hand around the god's cock. The sound is ten ways to sin, Loki's heels digging into the back of his thighs as the deity whimpers the most perfect way and lifts his hips into Tony's touch.

"Oh fuck babe, that's hot." Tony groans, stroking from base to tip in the confined space, working the god to a silk covered steel perfection. Loki's hips squirming under his hold even as Tony's free hand holds him with a bruising grip, moving in a means to find his own release and Tony's right there with him, letting go only long enough to push leather and boxer briefs down and out of his way.

Loki's hot breath fans over his ear, the god leaving a wet path down to his shoulder and biting down as his hips arch up into Tony's palm. The pinch of pain goes straight to his balls and he's seeing stars for a second. Long fingers play down Tony's side, coming to rest on his hips, hooking a finger though the belt loop there and tugging with a demanding grunt.

Tony lifts his head up and licks a wet slash across Loki's panting mouth. He attempts what should be a calm and cool look, failing impressively as Loki tugs again, just enough friction in his too tight pants that he moans.

"Fuck, what?" he gasps, crushing his lips to Loki's in a smothering kiss, pulling back just far enough for Loki to speak.

"Need...you." The request is a high noted whimper of pleasure, green eyes fluttering closed. He's close, his cock thick and stone hard in Tony's hand, the little needing moans growing louder with each stroke and Tony's nearly come himself from sensory overload. Maybe he has, he's not even sure anymore, Loki's needy hands and demanding mouth have completely shifted his world, putting everything out of perspective.

He's more than willing to obey the godly command, pulling away. Loki groans at the sudden lack of contact, eyes coming open to watch half-lidded as Tony forces his own pants down in desperation. The god swipes the tip of his pink tongue over his abused lower lip as Tony pulls his belt off and away.

The material falls forgotten around his ankles as he grinds his hips to Loki's once more. The god's hard cock is a flame against his own aching shaft as he squeezes them together with his hand, thrusting against the sweat and pre-come damp cradle of Loki's hips, reduced to animalistic grunts.

He babbles endlessly, words getting lost and garbled with his moans against the hollow of the god's collarbones, a neverending mantra of worship that Loki absorbs like a plant starved of water in a sudden rain. "I wanna see you come. Fuck, let me see you come like this. You're perfect. You're beautiful. I want to worship you with my mouth. Nnf… fuck. You're perfect."

The arc reactor behind Loki is whining as the god arches in an elegant curve of his spine and he's crying out something in no language that's spoken on Earth as he spills his hot seed. Whips of his essence striping against their bellies and chests as Tony strokes Loki, and himself, through it. Someone's hooked jumper cables to his nuts. Words fall from his mouth that sound too damn close to the god's name as he climaxes hard.

Loki slips limp-boned down against the arc wall, Tony stumbling to keep them both from crashing to the floor even as his muscles tremble from overuse. Wrapping a strong arm around the god's back he eases himself to his knees, letting Loki lower himself down with him.

Tony's breathing hard into the crook of Loki's long neck, brushing his nose against the warm, sweat-damp skin and taking in the heady smell of their sex.

"Fuck, you're perfect," he murmurs softly, stroking his fingers up and down the deity's bare spine, feeling each bump, tracing them out in complicated patterns as their breathing mellows out. Loki is placid against him, his heart beating in a steady rhythm against Tony's chest as he shares touches. Like he can't understand how he's ended up here, like he's trying to see if Tony's real still.

Grabbing his shirt, he uses it to wipe clean the mess that's cooling against their skin, ghosting kisses down the god's- his god's- temple as he does so.

This has fixed nothing and everything all at once for them as Loki breathes out a soft sigh against his collarbones, the warm breath feathering over the arc.

"Next time, we do this in a bed," he whispers softly, stroking his hand up the back of Loki's neck and petting his damp black hair, noting the soft curls forming in the humidity.

He can feel Loki smile against his chest, those thin kiss-red lips twitching against his skin in the most pleasing of ways. "Who said there will be a next time?"

"I'm Tony fucking Stark." He chuckles, shifting them so that his ass is against the concrete floor and back against the arc wall. Settling both of them comfortably.

From the place against his sternum Loki chuckles, his voice a little gritty from far too much use and damage. "Lowly mortal."

Bringing his head down, he brushes his lips to the shell of Loki's ear, earning him an exhausted sigh. "That's not what you were saying a few moments ago."

Loki makes a pleasant, humming noise deep in his chest. A thousand plus years of blissed out deity resting against his chest.

He's sure it was a job well done when Loki's body slowly relaxes against his, boneless in a way that has nothing to do with a well-earned orgasm and everything to do with sleep.

The positive side of being in the basement housing for the arc reactor is that it's warm. Something he'd never noticed about his own arc -thank god- but here, on a much larger scale, it is most definitely giving off enough heat to leave Tony feeling sweaty and Loki's placid body against his a hot lump.

The warm air is probably good for the slumbering god's muscles and for that reason alone Tony holds out having to wake him from where he'd fallen asleep, face pressed against Tony's chest. Elegant fingers curled around the arc embedded in his chest and impossibly long legs tangled with his. Neon fuzzy green socks still in place.

In the cold blue glow of the whipping plasma and electricity only a foot of glass away from them, Loki looks as ethereal as he truly is. Pale skin drawn tight over long lean muscles and bones, face covered by a mess of long black hair.

Tony's long ago given up on trying to make sense of anything anymore. His life is in the balance, the world may be ending and here he is, carding his fingers though a slumbering intergalactic war criminal's hair after a nice mutual hand job. And does he regret it?

Fuck no.

There's so much of Loki he wants to unravel. Like a present that needs to be taken apart in layers. Both mind and body.

When Thor had dropped Loki off with the request of care, Tony had jumped at the chance with a clear intent to save the god from his demons. To heal him in a way he'd been healed; through calm words and the soothing balm of time, but in the long week something's changed. Somehow it's become as much about helping himself as helping Loki. About finding a place for both of them, and in the process they've found a place with each other.

He's never had this before. Pegging the feeling down as belonging, he stares out over the cool blue lit basement. Even with Pepper, at every point in his life he's just danced around everyone, never really interacted with them, lived or even breathed the same air as they did because he's always been off in his own little world.

'_Your head's in the clouds, son.' _

Obie had that right.

He'd always assumed someone would have to drag him down to Earth before he'd feel that sense of belonging and because of that, he'd feared and avoided it. To be removed from his safe place, the labs and the tech and the crazy thoughts- his world. That would be hell.

He knows now all he needed was someone who also has their head in the clouds.

Maybe together they're both crazy and broken. Maybe the world will end in a ball of ice tomorrow, and maybe Loki will rip his heart out and eat it Doner style in front of Thor. He's willing to risk that though for this peace of heart and mind.

The way Loki is so utterly relaxed against his chest makes him think it's the same for the deity too.

Rubbing his palm in a circle around one of the stitched wounds on Loki's side, Tony watches his toes curl and spine arch like a cat rousing from a nap in the sun.

"You can sleep upstairs, down here's going to kill my back," he murmurs, pressing his lips to the deity's temple only to receive a grunt of displeasure. Loki pulls back and rubs his hand over his face, dropping it down only to frown at Tony.

"You should remove your beard," he says, voice gravelly.

"Over my dead body," Tony breathes out a chuckle, pushing black hair from Loki's face and drawing him close for a kiss that's actually accepted. Loki's lips pull into a smile against his.

"That can be arranged." The god chuckles, pulling back and gathering himself to his feet with slow movements. Tony catches his flinches of pain as his abused body protests what was probably too much exertion for it.

They redress, Loki favoring his side but other than that his movements are languid and Tony feels like he can check "Sexily Satisfying an Alien God" off his list of things to do in life with a big fat red marker.

Maybe even underline it a few times just for posterity's sake.

They take the elevator up and Jarvis doesn't judge him for missing his shirt as he mentally plans the next course of action. Maybe a shower and then, maybe, giving SHIELD a call. He's still unsure if the threat is real and he needs to be one hundred percent certain before bringing in the added risk of Fury and his merry band of agents.

Loki's life depends on him to make the right judgment call.

Fuck, he hates having to make all the hard decisions in life.

Stroking his mussed hair, he glances to Loki as the other man stands boredly in the elevator, long fingers tapping out an unfamiliar rhythm on the hand rail.

It's hard to tell what's going through his head as the lift stops moving and the doors slide open. Green fuzzy sock covered feet pad quietly across the bare marble floor, Loki drifting to the window like it's pulling him by magnet.

Following to look out over the city with Loki, the storm looks worse.

Snow clings to the windows like it's desperate to get in to destroy the warmth. Beating itself against the pane with forceful gusts of wind. The patio and landing pad is covered in a foot, maybe more of the shit already. It's swallowing the world whole.

Half the city looks black and he wonders if the power's out or if the snow fall is becoming that thick. He leans closer to the glass to try and see winks of light between the flakes.

Lightning streaks across the sky, lighting the city and snow up in a brilliant display of nature, the boom that follows rattling the floor to ceiling windows hard enough that Tony actually takes a step back, swearing as a second and third bolt follow. "Shit. Lightning isn't common in a blizzar-"

Loki cuts him off with a swipe of his hand, the gesture aggravated, the god watching with razor sharp eyes as more lightning forks across the pregnant storm clouds, the flash of light illuminating the snow-whitened world for a moment before it all goes dark gray again.

"Thor is here," Loki says after a heavy sigh, fingers tightening into a fist at his side before he relaxes his hands by force of will.

"Hua." Tony grunts, nodding. Looks like big brother is back a whole lot sooner then he had assumed.


	9. Chapter 9

Colossal thanks to Krys and AidennQueen for being such amazing betas. Seriously.

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All things considered, it hadn't been too long since Tony last saw the god of thunder. There's been no extreme passage of time to mark the changes taking place under Stark Tower, no lengthy explanation to why Loki's doing better or why Tony's fucked in the head.

That would make it all a little easier to explain and life does seem to be a bitch right now concerning all things easy.

Thor eyes his brother with a healthy mix of weariness and all-encompassing concern, his summer blue sky eyes taking in the drained leanness to Loki's body and the love marks on his neck before turning from him to Tony. Loki's eyes track Thor with just as open curiosity as the large blond walks off the lift with easy strides.

Thor looks just as changed by the week as Tony feels, his strong shoulders tense and when he turns his eyes to him, they look tired beyond his years. Or maybe just catching up to his true age. It's a look that doesn't fit the prince well at all, but one he probably wears more often than not these days.

He's sans cape this time, dressed in what's got to be down time clothes for the guy; dark colored tunic and leggings that look to be butter soft suede that are tucked into knee high boots. It would be a comical outfit on anyone else, but Thor still looks every inch the king in it.

The thunderer slips a tanned leather satchel off his shoulders; something more from an Indiana Jones movie than Lord of the Rings like the rest of the guy. "Br-Loki." he catches himself in greeting, big hands clenching at the leather strap to stop himself from reaching out, tendons standing out like a body builder with the strain of his internal dilemma.

Thor wears his heart on his sleeve, that's for sure, but so does Loki. Tony can all but feel Loki humming with tension against his side, taking half a step forward before catching himself.

Tony really wishes they'd fix things between the two of them but Loki makes no further move, stepping back a pace, the frown haunting his face directed at his brother.

Thor's jaw bunches as he grits his teeth before turning his equally unfriendly greeting to him. "Stark."

Tony takes the gruffness as greeting more as a sign that bad news is to come and less as a sign that Thor's pissed directly at him. He rubs his hands together before splaying them out to display to Thor. "You're back soon, big guy. I thought you'd spend a longer time away."

"I received the news I sought sooner than anticipated. I forgive you for intruding but I was hoping to check up on things here. I've brought provisions for Loki as well." He holds the satchel up in a way of explanation. His eyes are on Loki again, drinking in the sight of the chaos god with open relief and sadness.

Tony nods and has to remind himself that when Thor last saw his little non-brother the younger god was close to death and being left in the hands of a stranger; there was no guarantee that Thor would arrive to find Loki still alive. And even now that the chaos god is alive and well, he's still a cold enigma to Thor, little warmer than an iceberg.

Tony offers a bemused smile when Loki makes no move to interact or greet his brother beyond standing as still and silent as a sycamore tree. "That's fine. Come in, sit. You want food?" he asks, taking a few steps back and waving a hand in the direction of the darkened kitchenette. Because asking that is a lot better than blurting out demands on what's word from Asgard.

Thor shakes his head, denying the offer as he strides into the dimly lit room and passes the bag to Loki, who takes it with a frown, before pulling at the old leather ties on the bag with quick fingers, looking in without spilling anything out. "You've been in my rooms."

Thor flinches at the ice cold tone used and maybe a bit at the still broken sound to Loki's voice before nodding slowly. "I had hoped you can forgive me for that slight once you see what I've brought you."

Tony feels very much like he's intruding on matters he doesn't belong in as the two Asgardians seem to dance around each other for a moment, before Thor locks in on him with a cryptic look that's nearly begging for time alone with his brother. Tony gives him a little sheepish smile but when he opens his mouth to excuse himself Loki glances his way, with a quick arched eyebrow, the god glaring slowly at catching him sneaking off and he feels like a bug attached to a pegboard.

Yeouch.

"I need ah- a shower?" he tries hard, rubbing a hand to the back of his neck and becoming all too aware that he's still shirtless and both he and Loki smell of sex and sweat. Glancing quickly down to the hammer hanging off the thunder god's belt he feels his face heat.

That's going to be the thing used to bash his brains in, unless Thor is feeling in a hands-on mood. Great. He hasn't felt this way since he was seventeen.

"I would like to have words with my brother in private but I will still be here when you return," Thor deems, waving him off like Tony's simply a member of his court and invading upon the conversation by simply being in the same building. Loki seems okay with this as he clutches the bag by the wide leather strap and turns away, tucking himself into a corner of the couch before rifling through the bag like a child on Christmas day.

The blatant way Loki's ignoring his brother seems natural between the two of them to the point that Tony almost feels safe leaving them alone for a while.

Almost.

It doesn't stop him from watching from the hallway as the two brothers, contrasting as day and night, sit on opposite ends of the couch with unearthly snow falling in the background before turning away. He waits a few moments, but neither jump for each other's throats or start screaming insults so he pushes away from where he's leaned up against the wall.

Under the blue glare of the bathroom lights he misses the mirrors, part of him wanting to see just how un-presentable he is in the presence of an alien prince and god of storms. Rubbing his shoulders, he steps around the broken glass still gathered in the corners of the marble floor like a thousand diamonds.

There's a sore spot near his neck where Loki had sank his teeth into his skin. Closing his eyes as he rubs the spot, he can almost still hear the choked moans from the deity, see the beautiful way he arched against the reactor glass.

Which is the most ass thing for him to be thinking of.

He fiddles with the dials fast and angrily, turning the water up past hot to boiling before he strips off his pants. Pissed at himself for thinking about sex at a time like this; when he knows Thor's brought bad news - there was just too much fucking depth in Thor's tone for it not to be bad news - and who knows what kind of otherworldly hell is building in the storm outside.

Loki's one good chance at getting a better life has been cut short by Thor returning; something that's both a blessing and a curse. Looking at the water whirl pooling around the drain and beating itself against the tile, Tony drags in a deep breath of thick steam and lets it out as a gravelly groan.

It wasn't just Thor's return that's fucked everything up.

The lust that had pooled in his belly curdles like milk left out too long in the summer heat, making him sick to his stomach with disgust, the steamy air around him only adding to it.

He had one job - one fucking job - to help Loki; and here he's taken something of pure intentions and bastardized it to the point the original purpose has become clouded. He's sure Yinsen would be disappointed in him, shaking his head as he cleans his glasses on his shirt tails. Disappointed just like his father and Pepper and everyone else in the fucking world.

Hissing in a breath as he steps under the hot stream of water, he takes the pain with self-loathing, scrubbing his hair and body free of the clean wintery scent of Loki and trying not to miss it like a sap…

Resting his hands against the wall, he leans his head down against the marble, shivering despite the scalding heat of water soaking down his back and shoulders. "Fuck. Tony. Get a grip," he repeats with each breath of thick air, the chant slowing his heart rate and calming him enough to think.

He needs to contact SHIELD, but the thought of Fury barging in here with the same cold intent that Bruce had instantly tenses him back up, his shoulders tight. At this point not only is he aiding a known intergalactic war criminal, but so has just about everyone else on the team.

Fury will fry not just him, but all of them alive for this and then where will Loki be; on the edge of maybe changing his life for the better only to be put through whatever fuckload kind of punishment SHIELD can cough up in the name of justice.

No.

He needs to find out what Thor's news is and what the god's opinion of this threat Loki's hinted at. Assemble the team himself if the need is there. Bypass SHIELD.

Stepping out of the shower and toweling himself dry, he throws the towel around his waist and wonders about the consequences to walking out there sans clothing just to make sure everything's okay but when he doesn't hear the sounds of bloodshed or yelling though, he decides against it,opting to take his time instead.

In all seriousness, the two brothers - or non-brothers as it is - have a lot they've got to be talking about. Pulling on a gray long sleeve and jeans from his closet, he wonders if this is it. If Asgard has come to take Loki back and Thor is collecting him to… to what?

It will be over Tony's dead body if it's back to more punishment. But if Thor's worked out some way for the god of chaos to return to his home without further punishment... If he's welcomed back openly...

Who is Tony to stand in the way of that?

Even if it leaves him feeling like he's been punched in the gut.

Sitting on the edge of his bed, he looks back at the messed up silk sheets and tries not to think about what kind of ethereal vision Loki would make curled in the clouds of gray with the sun painting his skin gold.

He marks the feelings down as brokenhearted with a mirthless chuckle, finishing dressing and combing out his damp hair with his fingers. He should call up Pepper, maybe even Happy or Rhodey; have Jarvis mark the date and time down on a calendar so TMZ can blare it on the cover of the next issue.

Tony Stark's feeling emotionally attached after a quick hand job.

It's even worse than when Pepper broke it off with him, because at least then he had the excuse of them being an undisclosed item for so very long.

What he'd had with Pepper was completely different though, he's relating to Loki in a way that he's never been able to coexist with anyone ever before and the idea of that being ripped away from him when it's all still so new feeling leaves him pushing his palms to his temples in a means to block out the thoughts.

He simply refuses to become emotionally dependent on someone in just a week.

_Too late._

Pushing his bare feet into sneakers and all thoughts to the back of his mind, he quietly pads down the hall, back to the community room where he'd left the thunderer with Loki. Ready to bite the bullet for whatever news the world brings with it.

Thor's still sitting on the couch just where Tony had left him, his wide shoulders dropped down in defeat as he combs his fingers though his wavy hair in a methodical way.

For one heart-stopping moment, Tony has to search to find Loki, standing back at the windows with a brave straight spine and air of confidence that's ill-suited to the way his head rests against the glass tiredly.

"Shower's free if you want to take one, Loki," he says, clearing his throat and coming around the recessed drop in the floor, sitting with his legs stretched out over the plush white carpet. He's itching to go to Loki, but with Thor sitting not too far away he's respectful enough to keep his distance.

Loki simply shakes his head no, a silent presence of darkness against the gray snow blowing outside.

"I have spoken with my brother," Thor says, reaching across the couch to grab the satchel left by Loki, pushing clothes and a few bound books back in, tying the bag closed before setting it back in its spot. Tidying. He can remember his mother doing that, cleaning the house when things were hard between her and his father. Busy work for bad news.

"You said you would." He nods dully, watching Thor rub his hands together and push back his mane of hair again.

"I have spoken with our father- my father-" he corrects himself with a flinch. "He says Loki's punishment is not seen as fulfilled."

"Meaning?" Tony drawls out, wrapping his arms around his chest as his skin rises in goosebumps. He wants to blame it on the rapidly dropping temperature outside and not the dread of Loki being dragged back out into that hellish world Thor had saved him from, but that's a big fucking lie.

"I am to bring my brother back to Jotunheim to fulfill his punishment to end, without further intervention," Thor says solemnly, shaking his big head and looking to Loki. Tony turns his eyes to the younger god too, seeing him standing there at the window and pretending not to hear his fate being decided so casually by a man who was supposed to be his father.

Jumping to his feet and jabbing a threatening finger at Thor, Tony feels anger burn through him, super nova hot. The god gives a pleased smile as Tony falls into an angry tirade of swears. "Fuck you and fuck Asgard and you know what? Sorry buddy. Not going to happen. You've got to get though me and Rhodey and I'm willing to bet Steve is going to back me on this and maybe even Clint. You're not taking him back, you can tel-"

"I'm not, Son of Stark," Thor says, rising to his feet, all six feet of Norse god making his spacious penthouse feel like a microscopic apartment in downtown Bronx. He stretches out an arm and clasps Tony's shoulder in a vice like grip.

"Wha..?"

Thor shakes his head, looking to Loki like he wants to reach out and grasp him too, but knowing better than to even try. Like Loki is a ghost to Thor that the Asgardian can only pretend to touch.

"I informed my father that he can find someone else to return my brother to Jotunheim. That whomever he sends will have to face me." Thor drops his hand to touch the heft of the hammer hanging from his side. An unspoken promises of blood and death that has Tony glad that he's on the god's side. "We may not be related by blood, but Loki is my brother and I will protect him as such," Thor says, returning to his seat on the couch.

Loki has not moved an inch when Tony turns to him. The god of thunder gives a soft understanding nod as Tony glances to him before moving to Loki's side.

Loki's as tense as a piano wire where he's leaning against the glass. Tony reaches out slowly and sets a gentle hand against the back of the god's neck, rubbing his thumb over the top bump of his spine, feeling his subtle shakes.

Tony squeezes his hand in what he hopes is reassurance, trying to draw Loki's attention from the snow. He seems to be so distant and lost as he watches the fat flakes. "So you're staying, huh?"

Loki nods finally, turning his head to the side to glance to him. His eyes are bright in the dim light as they finally focus on him. "On Midgard. Yes."

Tony nods, dropping his hand down and leaning his shoulder against the window. Blocking the hellish snow from his and Loki's view and basking instead in the sight of the dark god before him. "Here, in the tower, with me. Or at Malibu. Or where ever you want to go, we go."

"I am not a pet," Loki hisses, eyes sharpening and Tony smiles, shaking his head no because Loki's lips are pulled into just enough of a tight grin that he knows the words have no bite to them.

"No. You're free to go anywhere you want to, I just want you to know that my door is always open to you. Both of you." He says loud enough that he's sure Thor can hear him, the big god reclining back on the couch in a relaxed way.

The smile that Thor gives is warm and genuine and Tony wonders if Loki could even smile like that if he wanted to. Not the hidden little smirks that twist his lips and make his eyes sparkle but a true full blown grin. He'd like to find out.

If they live through this, through this war over Loki and whatever is blowing into New York like a blizzard.

"Go on. Go take a shower and crash in bed. Thor here isn't going anywhere. I'm not. The storm's obviously not," he says in a softer tone, clasping the ends of inky locks between his thumb and index finger, twisting them about before Loki pulls away with a barely contained smile, still trying to retain his frown from before.

"Go Loki. You smell of rut," Thor demands from the depths of the room and Tony hadn't even heard the guy move from the couch to the fridge in the kitchenette, obviously making himself at home considering the way he's all but climbing into the fridge in search of the previously offered food.

"Scandalous," Tony chuckles, with Loki giving him a scathing look before walking slowly from the room. He's smart enough not to follow, pretty sure if he tails the god to make sure he'll be okay that Loki will take a pleasure in ripping things off his body that he much enjoys keeping. It doesn't stop him from watching Loki walking slowly down the hall, one hand trailing against the stone wall to help maintain his balance.

"You shouldn't do that. Coddling him only angers him so much more." It's really not an insult, as much as it's the older Asgardian knowing to keep his distance from his brother at a time like this, something Tony is just starting to learn.

Tony draws his shoulders up in a limp shrug, glancing over his shoulder at the big blond god who's making quick work of a peanut butter sandwich that Tony didn't even know he had the bread for.

Apparently someone adapts easily enough to suddenly being homeless.

Then again, this wouldn't be Thor's first trip off to Midgard after his father had booted him out.

"Like you have room to talk? He's your little brother," Tony reminds, remembering clearly how unwilling Thor had been to let Loki out of his sight when he'd first invaded Earth.

Thor shrugs his wide shoulders with a bemused look, stuffing the last bit of bread into his mouth before scraping the knife around the jar of Chunky Jiff. "You should be proud of yourself, he does not lay with just anyone," he says around his mouthful.

Tony winces and eyes the hammer hanging from Thor's hip as he comes closer to the counter. "Ah. Yeah. Sorry about that. Are you going to bash my head in now or after a glass of milk to wash down that sandwich?"

Thor looks genuinely confused for a second before chuckling, but seems to take the milk offer to heart, turning back to the fridge while waving a passing hand at Tony. "Nay. My brother can lay with whoever he wants. That has never been a worry to me. He is wise and careful in picking his lovers."

Huh. Copacetic.

"I'm not concerned with that. What worries me is his healing." Thor's voice carries from within the fridge, the goofy position doing nothing to hide the genuine worry from his tone.

"Worried? He's doing great. He bounced back hell of a lot faster than I've ever seen or heard of from anyone, considering the wounds he showed up with, the whole drug fiasco."

Thor rises enough to look at him over the door of the refrigerator with a frown, shaking his head a little and shutting the door. He crosses his arms over his wide as a fucking state chest and leans back against the fridge, dwarfing the kitchenette's small space. "I have seen many a warrior come back from battle. They seem fine. Their wounds heal, and they move on with life, but the battlefield haunts them. I feared that Loki would be one to fall victim to this when he'd first come to Midgard seeking the Tesseract. He had the same fevered look to his eyes as those fallen warriors would get. My brother's mind was far removed in those three days but it only seems more so now."

"PTSD," Tony says with a nod, coming around the counter and seating himself on a barstool, folding his hands on the cold marble for a second before fidgeting, smoothing his palms flat against the counter insteadand giving Thor's confused look a tired smile. "We have it here too. I think he's going to be okay with time."

Thor looks to him, those crystalline blue eyes sharp and just as cutting as Loki's glares can be. "How can yo-"

"You trusted me to help him, Thor. Don't stop trusting me now," he says, cutting Thor off with a glare.

Thor considers his words with a guarded expression, his eyes warming a little as he seems to come to a conclusion. "I've yet to doubt my judgment of you, Stark."

"Good. Glad that's out of the way." He nods, pushing a hand through his damp hair and looking to the windows. Beyond their reflection is the blowing storm, darkness and a blanket of white covering the city one bit at a time. Just watching it gives him chills.

"Loki said something strange a few hours ago about the storm," Tony tries, pushing a coaster around the counter, stopping to rub the tips of his fingers over his mouth as he tries to put the right words together.

"The storm?" Thor questions, gesturing to the windows with a wide sweep of his hand. Tony rolls his eyes, like he could be referring to another storm freezing the shit out of the North East coast of the United States.

"Yeah. The storm. He said something about how it's not normal for here; I'm pretty inclined to agree to that. I've been on Earth my whole life and I've never seen anything like this. It feels different." Tapping his index finger to the side of his head, he tries to explain better. "There's this pull, like someone's tied an anchor to the back of my teeth that tells me to get the fuck away from here."

"I wish my brother had said something to me, but I do agree, it feels of magic. It is much like the storms that gather over Jotunheim. They are legendary, covering large swaths of the land, nigh half the realm in one all-destructive blanket." Thor nods, turning to lean his elbows against the counter and gazing out the window. "It is said that the Jotunn's magic is stronger during such storms. That if my father had gone against them then, that the outcome of the great war would have been much different."

He's not sure how much Loki is comfortable with him telling considering the dream, the torture at the hands of the Jotunn. It's all incredibly personal, but there's something about it that's been itching at the back of his mind since he'd woken up from it.

"These Jotunn, do they have something like the Tesseract? Little blue cube?" He asks, holding his hands up, thumb and index fingers on both hands together to make a rectangle shape with his fingers.

Thor seems thoughtful for a moment, stroking his hand over his stubbly chin, bright eyes distant. "They have nothing like the Tesseract, but the heart of Jotunheim…"

"What's that?" Tony questions impatiently as Thor trails off in deep thought.

"The Casket of Ancient Winters, but it is missing. It's believed to be lost with the destruction of the Bifrost," the Asgardian says, a hard set coming to his bright eyes as he looks back to the window, watching the ever pounding snow blanket the world outside. Blue eyes sharpening in scrutiny.

Missing his ass, he's sure recently Loki's had an up close and personal with this casket, and hasn't said a word to Thor about it. Hasn't said a fucking word to anyone.

Tony tries for roughly two seconds not to feel bitter, but he's said and done so much to gain Loki's trust and this is how he's repaid, in deceit. Then again, Loki was always considered the mythological god of lies and chaos. He'd probably sat back and ate up every part of Tony's bleeding heart.

How much of this has been a fucking lie?

Every damn moment of it, knowing his sour luck.

Tony's two seconds away from hunting down Loki and shaking him for information, or beating the shit out of him, when Jarvis announces the presence of Rogers on the lift and coming up. His eyes narrow at the large Asgardian but Thor simply waves him off, leaving the kitchen to stand by the windows like Loki had not too long ago. Looking tense and brooding as he searches out the clouds slowly darkening out the city below.

Thor's no idiot, he's probably thinking he's been tricked by his brother too, this one adding to a thousand year long list of beguilement and treachery by the chaos god.

Scrubbing his hands over his face, he waits for the super soldier and stews in his resentment, pulling an olive jar close with a soft scrape against the marble and chewing the greens whole. He's almost ready to make himself a drink when the lift doors open.

"Thor!" Steve's voice carries over before the man even comes into view from the elevator. Thor offers a tense smile that's more grim then welcoming, not offering anything further than a sharp hello before returning his pacing in front of the windows.

"Who invited you to the party?" Tony calls over bitterly, poking a toothpick like a pitchfork into an olive before pushing the jar away.

Steve simply shrugs, eyeing the clearly distressed thunder god a moment, but seemingly unaffected by the news that he's somehow back on Tony's shit list. Not that it's a surprise, no one seems to be taking Tony very seriously lately, maybe that's what happens when you lose your marbles.

Finally turning his attention to Tony, Steve shoves his hands into his slacks' pockets, hunching his shoulders. "You might want to have Jarvis turn on the news?"

Narrowing his eyes, Tony points the olive at the soldier before popping it into his mouth. "Why should I, when apparently I have you here to give me the rundown?"

Steve lets out an exasperated sigh, the kind of thing reserved for dealing with stubborn children and Tony Stark. He's got too much shit to deal with though and doesn't care to hear about it, getting to his feet before Rogers waves him back down. "The city's being evacuated; the president's called a state of emergency."

Thor does turn around at that, crossing the room in wide strides, tree trunk arms crossed over his chest. "Your land is being evacuated?"

"This storm, the temperature is down to about fifteen degrees outside and still going down. Rapidly. The snow's knocking out power all over the place, apparently the only reason we haven't noticed is-"

"The tower runs itself, yeah. I designed it." Tony waves him on, turning on the stool to face Rogers and rubbing his index finger over his lips. "Fury?"

Steve shakes his head with another sigh, raking his fingers though his thick hair. "Hasn't called yet," he says, like it's only a matter of time. Tony's on board with that thought.

If New York is evacuating then he's got to decide if he's leaving or staying.

_Home screen advantage. _His decision was made before he'd even realized he needed to make it. No, what he needs to do is talk with Loki. Now. Because he has a sinking feeling that his kindness has been rewarded with deceit that's burning like bitter acid in the back of his throat.

"Thor and Loki both confirm that this storm isn't from Earth, there's something otherworldly going on. You might not want to directly contact Fury, SHIELD's idea of handling situations aren't going to be much help right now up against a bit of weather. But if you want to contact the team you can," he orders, rising from his seat. "You can stay up here to make the calls, keep Thor company, eat, and do whatever it is you do."

He's halfway across the room before Steve catches up to the fact he's walking away. "Where are you going?"

"I'll be back, just make the fucking calls, Steve," he grunts, glancing across the room to Thor who only sends him a haunted look that Tony doesn't plan on taking the time to decipher.

Loki isn't asleep when he finds him, but sitting naked on the edge of Tony's bed. The god's inky black hair hangs into his face in wet stripes, dripping down to the marble floor at his feet,his hands hiding his face from view.

His intentions of coming in here and demanding answers from Loki don't die away, but he deflates a little. Snatching his dirty old MIT jacket from the back of his desk chair, he sits next to the chaos god, wrapping the warm fabric over his damp naked shoulders before pulling him against his chest.

Loki folds into the hold, resting his damp temple against Tony's collarbone, his ice-cold body naked and shivering now that it knows what warmth is again.

Wrapping his arms around the trembling deity, Tony counts his vertebrae with his fingertips, face pinched into a frown though, as he smoothes away Loki's shivers. His heart wants to think Loki regrets everything, part of him that hopes he's going to open up and spill everything, lay all his cards on the table. "Why did you not tell me what the Casket is? What this storm is?" he questions with no warmth in his voice as he slowly pulls Loki away from him by the shoulders. "Why didn't you tell me anything?"

Loki groans, a disgruntled sound, his face falling into an equally disgusted look, like sharing this information is worse than death. "I cannot, you could never understand."

Arching an eyebrow, Tony sneers. "Wouldn't understand? What the fuck is there not to understand? I'm pretty sure we're going under attack or some shit like that. Why didn't you tell me from the beginning? Was this your game? To play me and Thor's kindness so you can- can- I don't even fucking know what's going on!" he snaps, throwing his hand out in frustration and forking it though his messed to shit hair.

Loki's eyes widen in hurt for a second, the look so fast that Tony's not sure he's caught it before they sharpen to poison green daggers, shaking his head. "I cannot, they are coming for me."

"Asgard isn't going to lay a hand on you and you know it, this isn't about them, is it?" He pauses, a frown pulling at his mouth as Loki seems to close up, mouth closed tight and eyes distant.

"Asgard stands no chance against what comes for me. You, lowly mortal, stand no chance, my oaf of a brother is not much better off," Loki says, his voice still rough but he sounds strong and determined. Sitting up, he pulls the jacket tight around his shoulders before meeting Tony's eyes.

"Fine, fuck your brother, you're all high and mighty and a god, whatever. But I'm not going to pretend that I can't see whatever this is is a much bigger mess than you can control. What the fuck is going on? I can help. Thor can help!" he nearly yells.

"Leave the city, foolish human, run away. I do not need your or Thor's loyalty," Loki nearly spits, pulling away. Tony swears as Loki slips from his prying fingers and off the bed,following suit as the god pulls on fresh clothes from the bag supplied by Thor with sharp, angry movements. With each piece of leather and armor, Loki's building himself a wall between himself and the rest of the world. A physical representation of his mental shields.

Reaching out, Tony grabs his thin arm, fingers digging into leather and fabric, spinning him about and pinning him between the wall and his body. "What the fuck is going on? What are you not telling me?"

"Sir, there is a foreign disturbance draining the main reactor at an accelerated rate," Jarvis warns, his tone blank, but the way the lights overhead flicker with his warning. Tony grips Loki's arm tighter, the god's eyes wide and so very green.

It's panic. That's the only word that fits the look on Loki's face.

"What aren't you telling us?" he demands again, his voice breaking with his own barely contained fear and anger. giving Loki a rough shake when he shakes his head no, his hands tight enough on the deity's arms that he's got to be leaving bruises but he can't just pull a care out of his ass at the moment.

He's done so much to trust Loki, opening up in ways he's never done so before, why the fuck can't the god do the same?

The lights above them flicker again; he can hear Steve calling out in question from down the hall as the tower gives a low whine like a great dying animal before going dark.

In the glow of the arc reactor Loki looks pale, the sick smile that crawls onto his face at a total contrast to the unshed tears in his eyes. "It is too late now," he whispers, shaking his head slowly.


End file.
